China's Ministry of Commerce listed a number of measures to
ensure control over direct investment of foreign fund in the real
estate sector, as the country strives to avoid international
speculative money to create bubbles in the sector.
Local commerce departments should strictly limit foreign
investment in luxury real estate, the ministry said in a document
published on its website Wednesday.
It reiterated foreign investors need to establish a real estate
company before they can invest in real estate projects, and they
should also get approvals from relevant department to expand their
business scope in order to invest in new real estate projects.
The ministry said foreign investors are not allowed to bypass
the above regulations by investing in domestic real estate
companies via acquisition or changing the real controller of the
domestic companies.
The ministry required local departments to report their approval
of the establishment of foreign-funded real estate companies to the
ministry. The ministry would investigate into the cases and deal
with irregular cases.
The country has been trying to provide proper housing for the
public by building more economically affordable apartments and
curbing the rapidly rising housing prices.
However, the sales prices of new houses rose by around six
percent year on year in 70 mainland's cities including Beijing,
Shanghai and Shenzhen in the first three months this year.
(Xinhua News Agency June 14, 2007)