国内英语新闻:Beijing to keep limitations on house purchases

Data show that the pace of housing-price increases is starting to slow. And properties are not being sold as quickly as they once had been.

In the first 11 months of the year, about 8.19 million square meters of commercial units were sold in Beijing. By the end of 2011, that number is expected to increase to about 9 million square meters, which will be the smallest total area recorded for annual Beijing property sales in the past 10 years, according to the city's official website on property sales.

Although a reduction in sales has been one of the government's goals, it has drawbacks.

"The reduction of sales has done some harm, leading to decreases in sales and contract taxes," Wang said. "We predict the revenue collected from these taxes will be 10 percent lower. Financial departments will release the exact official number later."

According to the website, the number of unsold residences in Beijing reached 130,000 on Dec 7, a record high in the past three years.

According to the current average property price, those properties are worth 341.5 billion yuan ($53.8 billion). That is about 90 billion yuan more than what the value of unsold properties had been when the property restrictions went into effect on May 1, 2010, according to Centaline China Property Research based in Beijing.

"If potential buyers would stop expecting property prices to keep decreasing and the developers would cut down their price, these units would be sold in a year," Chen said.

The buyers' interests will be protected as the government is supervising property companies that have faulty housing projects and helping the market function properly, said Wang Rongwu.