Archive for ‘housing’

13/05/2020

Xinhua Headlines-Xi Focus: Xi stresses achieving moderately prosperous society in all respects

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about poverty alleviation efforts at an organic daylily farm in Yunzhou District of Datong City, north China’s Shanxi Province, May 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

— Xi stressed addressing the difficulties faced by enterprises in resuming production and operation.

— Xi underscored lifting the remaining poor population out of poverty.

— Xi required implementing pro-employment policies.

TAIYUAN, May 12 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed efforts to complete building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and ride on the momentum to write a new chapter in socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour in north China’s Shanxi Province.

Xi called for efforts to overcome the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic and make greater strides in high-quality transformation and development to ensure that the target of poverty eradication is reached and the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects is completed.

During the tour from Monday to Tuesday, Xi inspected work on coordinating the regular epidemic response with economic and social development, and on consolidating the poverty eradication results.

While visiting an organic daylily farm in Yunzhou, Datong City, on Monday, Xi said what he cares about the most after poverty eradication is how to consolidate the achievements, prevent people from falling back into poverty, and make sure rural people’s incomes rise steadily.

He said an important benchmark to evaluate an official’s job performance is to see the amount of good and concrete services he or she has delivered to the people.

When visiting a community of relocated villagers, Xi said relocation is not only about better living conditions but also about chances to get rich. He called for follow-up support to residents with tailor-made rural business projects to ensure sustainable development.

Highlighting that whether the people can benefit shall be a top concern, Xi demanded more supporting policies be put in place in terms of industrial development, financing, agricultural insurance, among others.

Xi applauded the strenuous efforts made by primary-level officials on helping people fight poverty.

At the home of villager Bai Gaoshan, Xi chatted with Bai’s family as they sat on a “kang” — a bed-stove made out of clay or bricks in north China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about poverty alleviation efforts in a village of Xiping Township in Datong City, north China’s Shanxi Province, May 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Xi said the CPC wholeheartedly seeks happiness for the Chinese people, having stopped collecting agricultural taxes and fees, helping the impoverished rural residents with housing and medical service, training them with skills, and finding ways for them to live a prosperous life.

“I believe our villagers will enjoy better days ahead,” Xi said.

On top of that, he called for consolidating achievements in poverty alleviation, and then focusing on rural vitalization to ensure a better life for rural residents.

He then went on to visit the 1,500-year Yungang Grottoes, a “treasure house” of artifacts featuring elements blending Chinese and foreign cultures, as well as cultures of China’s ethnic minorities and the Central Plains.

Xi stressed that historical and cultural heritages are irreplaceable precious resources, and protecting them should always be put in the first place in tourism development.

Noting that tourism should not be over-commercialized, Xi said tourism should become a way for the Chinese to understand and appreciate the culture of the nation and enhance their cultural confidence.

The historical implications of communication and integration behind the Yungang Grottoes should be further explored to enhance the sense of community for the Chinese nation, said Xi.

During a research tour in a stainless steel manufacturer in the provincial capital Taiyuan on Tuesday morning, Xi said products and technology are the lifeline of businesses, calling for more efforts in technological innovation to make a greater contribution to the development of advanced manufacturing.

He also called on businesses to strictly implement epidemic prevention and control measures to ensure the safety and health of their workers, while promoting the resumption of work and production to make up for the time lost.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, waves to workers during a research tour in a stainless steel manufacturer in Taiyuan, capital city of north China’s Shanxi Province, May 12, 2020. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

Later on, Xi went to check the ecological protection work of the Fenhe River in the city, and urged the incorporation of environment protection, energy revolution, green development, and economic transformation.

After hearing the work reports of the CPC Shanxi Provincial Committee and the provincial government on Tuesday afternoon, Xi stressed that no relaxation is allowed in epidemic prevention and control, noting that efforts should be made to guard against both imported infections and domestic rebounds, improve regular prevention and control mechanism, and prevent new outbreaks.

Xi called for efforts on more promptly and effectively addressing the difficulties faced by enterprises in resuming production and operation, on solid implementation of all the policies and measures for expanding domestic demand, and on strengthening the competitiveness and quality of the real economy, especially the manufacturing industry.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, speaks with workers during a research tour in a stainless steel manufacturer in Taiyuan, capital city of north China’s Shanxi Province, May 12, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Continuous efforts should be made to promote the adjustment and optimization of China’s industrial structure, and scientific and technological innovations should be greatly enhanced to continue achieving breakthroughs in new infrastructures, technologies, materials, equipment as well as new products and business models, Xi said.

He stressed overcoming the difficulties and obstacles facing reforms in key areas, including state-owned enterprises and assets, the fiscal, tax, and financial system, business environment, the private sector, domestic demand expansion, and urban-rural integration.

Xi also highlighted efforts to improve the country’s system and mechanism for opening-up.

China will uphold the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, and steadily implement the national strategy for ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River basin, he said.

More should be done to accelerate institutional innovation and strengthen the implementation of institutions to help form a green way of production and living, he said.

Efforts should be made to solidify the foundation for the development of agriculture and rural areas, beef up policy support for grain production and lift the remaining poor population out of poverty, Xi said.

Authorities should adhere to the people-centered development philosophy and ensure the bottom line of people’s livelihood, Xi said. He added that efforts should be made to implement pro-employment policies and facilitate the employment of key groups such as college graduates, veterans, rural migrant workers and urban people facing difficulties.

Efforts should be expedited to improve the weak areas in the public health system exposed by the epidemic and shift the focus of social governance to the primary levels, Xi said.

The rich and colorful local history and culture as well as revolutionary cultural resources should be fully drawn on and used to promote cultural advancement, Xi said.

He stressed consistent efforts to promote core socialist values to guide Party cadres as well as the public to enhance morality, cultivate good ethics and strengthen cultural confidence.

Xi also called for efforts to improve the Party’s political ecosystem, strictly observe the Party’s political discipline and rules and fight against corruption and undesirable conduct.

Source: Xinhua

20/04/2020

China resumes major water conservancy projects

BEIJING, April 20 (Xinhua) — China has resumed construction of major water conservancy projects amid its further containment of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic.

Construction has resumed so far on 143 of the 172 major water conservancy projects, with the scale of investment under construction reaching over 1 trillion yuan (around 141 billion U.S. dollars), according to the Ministry of Water Resources.

The ministry said 30 conservancy projects have completed construction and produced benefits.

As the situation of epidemic control and prevention continues to improve, China is speeding up construction on major infrastructure projects to mitigate the economic impact of the novel coronavirus epidemic.

Construction has resumed on about 85 percent of the housing and urban infrastructure projects in China as of April 1, with about 158,700 housing and urban infrastructure projects across the country cranking up work, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Source: Xinhua

28/07/2019

Senior official underlines drinking water safety in poor areas

YINCHUAN, July 27 (Xinhua) — Hu Chunhua, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has urged more efforts to address weak links in the country’s poverty alleviation campaign, including drinking water safety in the impoverished areas.

Hu, also chief of the State Council’s leading group of poverty alleviation and development, made the remarks during an inspection tour from Friday to Saturday in the city of Guyuan in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

After visits to some impoverished villages, Hu said efforts should be made to ensure compulsory education, basic medical care, and housing for the rural poor, while drinking water safety should be guaranteed.

The country’s central authorities should speed up the implementation of poverty relief policies, while local governments should increase fund use efficiency, he said.

Source: Xinhua

03/03/2015

Mumbai House-Hunting Tips: Bring Lots of Cash, Ditch Your Furniture, Buckle Up! – India Real Time – WSJ

There is nothing more precious in Mumbai than a good flat.

With a population density of some 21,000 people per square kilometer, the city’s core is one of the most claustrophobic places on the planet. The air is equally thick with pollutants. There are wonderful things about Mumbai, but after a day outside, one needs a place to relax and reflect on what those things are. A refuge is the difference between happiness and surrender.

“When I first came here I thought I was here in the city’s final stages,” New Yorker Suketu Mehta wrote in “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found,” his Pulitzer Prize-nominated memoir. “Then I moved to a nicer apartment.”

But as with most precious things, decent apartments and decent prices are rare in Mumbai. Here is a rough guide to prepare for the search.

via Mumbai House-Hunting Tips: Bring Lots of Cash, Ditch Your Furniture, Buckle Up! – India Real Time – WSJ.

16/02/2015

Li gives residents keys to ‘new life’|Politics|chinadaily.com.cn

The set of keys that Xiao Wenmei received from Premier Li Keqiang opens up not only her new apartment but her future.

Li gives residents keys to 'new life'

Li visited the newly finished Yu’an community in Guiyang, Guizhou province, and helped distribute keys to the new apartments on Saturday.

“Have you seen your new apartment?” Li asked as he handed keys to Xiao. “It is not only the key to your home but also to your new life.”

He then posted a fu character, a traditional Chinese paper cutting for Spring Festival, at the community’s main office.

“A new community is not only about building new houses but also about people’s new lives, so they can live in a comfortable and safe environment,” he said.

Xiao, 32, was still excited as she recalled the moment she received the keys from the premier. She said her family is busy preparing to move into the new apartment before Chinese New Year’s Eve “as a good start of the year”.

She has lived with her husband and kids in a nearby village, where houses leaked and roads became muddy during rainstorms. The local government invested 3 billion yuan ($481 million) in 2009 to build 8,500 apartments for 5,000 households in Xiao’s community.

Xiao’s family was allotted two apartments, about 300 square meters, as were some other families.

“We’ll move into one apartment and rent the other out,” she said. “A new house is like a big dream for my family.”

The Chinese government has counted heavily on the rebuilding of urban shantytowns to drive domestic demand and improve people’s living conditions.

via Li gives residents keys to ‘new life’|Politics|chinadaily.com.cn.

14/02/2015

China surpasses affordable houses targets – Xinhua | English.news.cn

China completed the building of 5.11 million affordable houses in urban areas in 2014, with 2.29 million such projects under way, surpassing the goals set at the beginning of the year, the State Council announced at a press briefing on Friday.


http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/123395759

The central government granted 198 billion yuan (32.35 billion U.S. dollars) to fund urban affordable housing projects in 2014, an increase of 25.1 billion yuan from the previous year, according to Qi Ji, deputy head of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-rural Development.

Throughout the past four years, more than 20 million affordable houses were completed, with 12 million under construction, and the assistance fund for building the houses has reached 710 billion yuan, according to Qi.

China has set goals to construct 36 million affordable houses, also called state-subsidized housing, public housing, or social housing, between the start of 2011 and the end of 2015.

“This year is the final year of the Twelfth Five-Year plan (2011-2015), and the government will accelerate the affordable housing project with a focus on transforming the shanty towns,” Qi said.

The Chinese government has been rolling out an affordable housing scheme since 2007, in an effort to provide homes to people unable to buy them at market prices. The efforts are also aimed at helping counter the slowdown in the property market in recent years.

via China surpasses affordable houses targets – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

19/12/2014

China to construct 7 mln affordable homes in 2015 – Xinhua | English.news.cn

China will begin construction of seven million apartments under the affordable housing program in 2015, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) announced on Friday.

MOHURD minister Chen Zhenggao revealed the target at a national conference on housing and urban-rural development. He said 4.8 million such homes should be completed next year.

The affordable housing program is aimed at providing cheap homes for eligible low-income earners. China began the construction of over seven million homes and completed 4.8 million in 2014.

Chen said China will also continue to push forward the shanty town renovation program extensively as “it can not only improve people’s livelihood but also spur economic growth“.

via China to construct 7 mln affordable homes in 2015 – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

10/12/2014

Need Financing to Build U.S. Property? Try Chinese Visa Seekers – China Real Time Report – WSJ

The giant trucks pumping concrete in Hudson Yards, New York’s biggest real-estate project in a generation, are being financed by an unlikely source: about 1,200 Chinese families in search of U.S. visas. As the WSJ’s Eliot Brown reports:

Developer Related Cos. says it has raised roughly $600 million from the families to build the foundation for three skyscrapers at the West Side project, a 17-million-square-foot colossus of office, retail and residential space set to open over the next decade.

To finance the concrete-steel platform, Related tapped a little-known and at times controversial federal visa program known as EB-5, which offers green cards to foreign families who invest at least $500,000 in U.S. projects that create at least 10 jobs per investor.

The amount brought in so far, which privately held Related hasn’t previously disclosed, is a record for the cash-for-visa program.

Related’s success shows how the once-obscure federal program has grown in popularity among developers and foreign investors since the recession.

Chinese nationals are the biggest source of EB-5 funds, making up more than 85% of visas approved in the 12 months ended in September. Many are investing for their children rather than for themselves, said Kenneth Li, a Houston real-estate broker who has offered advice to Chinese investing in EB-5 projects.

“For many of them, it’s for the next generation,” he said.

via Need Financing to Build U.S. Property? Try Chinese Visa Seekers – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

19/10/2014

Chinese Home-Buying Binge Transforms California Suburb Arcadia – Businessweek

“Oh, hey! How ya’ doin’?” Raleigh Ornelas hollers, leaning out the window of his spotless white pickup truck. He’s recognized the man across the street, a developer standing in front of a Tuscan-style mansion under construction. “Where have you been hiding at? I call you, you don’t call me.”

Why Are Chinese Millionaires Buying Mansions in an L.A. Suburb?

Ornelas is an informal broker in Arcadia, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains. He’s been keeping an eye out for the builder, an Asian man with a slight comb-over who goes by Mark. Ornelas has found two older homeowners who’ve finally agreed to sell their properties, and he knows that Mark, like all developers here, needs land on which to build mansions for an influx of rich clients from mainland China.

Ornelas rattles off addresses on a nearby street. “Three-eleven, that guy, he’s wack,” he says, shaking his head. “He wants 2.8.” He means million dollars. “And then 354, they want $2 million.”

The lot is 17,000 square feet. “Seventeen for 2 mil?” Mark asks, incredulous.

“I know,” Ornelas says. “They’re going crazy.”

A year ago the property would have gone for $1.3 million, but Arcadia is booming. Residents have become used to postcards offering immediate, all-cash deals for their property and watching as 8,000-square-foot homes go up next door to their modest split levels. For buyers from mainland China, Arcadia offers excellent schools, large lots with lenient building codes, and a place to park their money beyond the reach of the Chinese government.

The city, population 57,600, projects that about 150 older homes—53 percent more than normal—will be torn down this year and replaced with mansions. The deals happen fast and are rarely listed publicly. Often, the first indication that a megahouse is coming next door is when the lawn turns brown. That means the neighbor has stopped watering and green construction netting is about to go up.

via Chinese Home-Buying Binge Transforms California Suburb Arcadia – Businessweek.

29/08/2014

In India, Slum Dwellers Move Into High Rises – Businessweek

Indian developer Babulal Varma’s job requires the human touch. The company he co-founded, Omkar Realtors & Developers, specializes in coaxing Mumbai’s slum dwellers from their hovels, then bulldozing the slum and erecting a mix of luxury condominium towers and free new homes for the slum dwellers on the cleared land. Omkar has completed 12 projects, rehousing 40,000, with 12 more in the works, making it the most successful business in this niche. Mumbai’s slums still house 6.5 million people.

One of Omkar’s luxury high rises, under construction

In one slum several years ago, an old woman wouldn’t leave her home. Omkar was keen to develop the site into a $1 billion complex of six luxury high rises and modern housing nearby for the slum dwellers. As Varma recounts it, he visited her and learned that the woman wanted two free apartments, not one. The woman lived with her two sons and their wives in a 90-square-foot shack. The wives argued constantly. Yet the law regulating slum redevelopment says a family that proves residency since 2000 can get only one new, 269-square-foot home on the same land.

Varma came back with a piece of paper showing a line drawn through the unit they’d be moving into, with a second door cut into the hallway. The wives could live separately, he explained. Agreement came in 45 minutes. “If you can understand their problem, if you can understand their issues, all the issues are very small, like a peanut, but to them this is the biggest thing,” says Varma, who cites karma as his operating philosophy as he sits beside an incense-burning Hindu altar.

By law, Omkar and other developers must secure the consent of 70 percent of a slum’s inhabitants before a project can go forward. Slum dwellers who have lived in the same spot since 2000 hold rights to the land but can sign them over to developers.

Omkar (the long form of the Hindu mantra “om”) contributes to the city’s efforts to get its slum dwellers into the middle class. “There is all-round social upliftment as people move from slums into proper apartments,” says Nirmal Deshmukh, chief executive officer of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), which selects the developers for the slum projects.

Since her marriage to a postal worker 13 years ago, Swarangi Pingle had lived in a 90-square-foot bilevel hut with her in-laws, her husband’s two siblings, and her daughter, now 11. On May 1 she and her family became homeowners in the development where Varma persuaded the old woman to go along. Pingle’s home on the top floor of a 23-story building has plenty of ventilation and sunlight. In the slum, Pingle would wait an hour to fill water jugs at the communal tap and for her turn at the common toilet. “This is much better,” she says as she shows off the private bathroom, kitchen sink, and aqua-painted living room. The new homes allow space for children to study, she says: “I may have married into a slum, but my daughter won’t go back to one.”

via In India, Slum Dwellers Move Into High Rises – Businessweek.

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