Chinese capital Beijing will conduct a massive property counting in the next 12 months, as the government seeks to sort out its housing policy that has failed to contain soaring prices in past months.

The counting will provide reliable data for the government in determining the scale of the housing development and establishing a housing security system, the Xinhua-run China Securities Journal said Friday.

The decision was made at a recent meeting of the municipal government attended by Beijing mayor Wang Qishan, the report said.

As in other major Chinese cities, housing prices in Beijing have been rising quickly in recent years, despite rounds of macro controls on the side of government to rein it in since 2003.

The year 2006 saw a new round of curbs from the government, including interest rates hikes, a new policy requiring developers to build more affordable smaller houses, and crackdown on speculations.

All the efforts, however, have proved futile. As Beijingers wait for the property prices to dip, its growth picked up again in recent months.

Official figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that the prices of new commodity houses in Beijing have been rising at two-digital rates since August.

In October, Beijing recorded the highest growth rate of 10.7 percent, among the 70 major cities surveyed.

Source: Xinhua