Industry Assn: Misappropriated Public Housing Undermines Market

(Beijing) -- While the central government promised to build more public housing to ease the rapid rise of home prices, an industry association said the Chinese housing market is showing signs of backtracking, disturbed by a welfare housing resurgence.

Home available for sales on the market only accounted for 30 percent of the country's total supply in 1998, when the country introduced housing reform to phase out welfare housing, which was built by state-owned enterprises to be distributed among their employees, China Real Estate Chamber of Commerce said in a report released on February 29.