Real estate experts criticize govt curbing policies

The central government's efforts to rein in the property market over the past decade met with criticism Monday from some prominent property tycoons and experts at a panel during the annual Boao Forum for Asia.

"We need to rein in the property sector in a market-oriented way rather than by means of administrative orders that are more suited to a planned economy," Pan Shiyi, chairman of real estate developer Soho China, said Monday at a panel focusing on government property policies.

Ren Zhiqiang, president of Huayuan Property Co, said that the government has constantly talked of its desire to steer the economy in a market-oriented direction, but its latest curbing policies and administrative constraints will not have this effect.

The announcement of new curbing policies at the beginning of March, especially a capital gains tax on sales of secondhand homes, resulted in a surge in transactions across the country as people rushed to buy homes before the implementation of the new measures.

The government's policies have actually encouraged the rise in home prices, and further administrative methods cannot resolve the problem, Wang Yijiang, a professor at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, also said at the panel.

But Qin Hong, director of the policy research center affiliated to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said that the government's curbing efforts have been in line with the nation's overall macroeconomic fine-tuning.