Housing a basic right, says NPC
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The country's top legislature said on Monday that the right of habitation is "one of the fundamental rights for residents" and should be guaranteed through legislation, as its bimonthly legislative session opened in Beijing.
The statement is seen as another major step after the central government introduced a slew of measures to curb rocketing housing prices in the country.
"To fundamentally solve the problem of the construction of economically affordable housing, we need to establish a national housing security system and to quicken the pace of legislation in this sector," Shi Xiushi, head of the Financial and Economic Committee of the National People's Congress, said while making a report to the legislature.
He said this year the central government allocated 79.2 billion yuan ($11.9 billion) to help local governments build economically affordable housing for the underprivileged.
China plans to build 5.8 million government-subsidized apartments this year, compared with 3.3 million apartments last year. By the end of September, construction had started on 90 percent of the apartments, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
However, Shi said that according to legislators' investigations, the money is still far from enough. He said the subsidy from the central government for each economically affordable apartment is only 23,700 yuan on average, or about 30 percent of the construction cost.
Many provincial governments fail to allocate a proper amount of money for such projects, leaving the burden to governments of cities, counties or districts, he said. "These grassroots-level governments complain that the pressure is too much."
