China orders crackdown on land hoarding amid rising prices Beijing (AFP) Dec 31, 2010 China has ordered local officials to fine property developers who have left land vacant for more than one year as Beijing cracks down on hoarding that has been blamed for driving up real estate prices. The country's land and resources ministry on Thursday published a list of 26 cases of land left undeveloped and the names of the property developers involved, with strict orders for authorities to punish the offenders. Real estate developers who have left land vacant for one to two years should be fined, while property left undeveloped for more than two years should be returned to the government, the statement said. Listed real estate developers will be banned from participating in auctions until they make use of the land they already own, the ministry said. Earlier this month, Beijing ordered local governments to curb rapid rises in land prices and pledged to crack down on corrupt developers looking to cash in on the market boom. Policymakers are struggling to rein in soaring real estate prices, which have risen out of the reach of many ordinary Chinese people despite a range of government measures to bring them down. In November, prices in 70 major cities were up 0.3 percent from October -- their third straight month-on-month rise -- and were 7.7 percent higher than a year ago, official data showed. Property prices have been fuelled by low interest rates and rampant bank lending, which reached 7.45 trillion yuan (1.1 trillion dollars) for the first 11 months of the year, just shy of the government's full-year target of 7.5 trillion yuan. Beijing has tried to keep a lid on prices through a range of measures such as hiking minimum down-payments on all property transactions to at least 30 percent and raising interest rates twice in less than three months. Authorities have also ordered banks to increase the amount of money they must keep in reserve -- effectively limiting the amount of money they can lend -- six times this year.
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