THE country’s housing minister pledged Thursday to keep the real estate market stable this year and ensure genuine demand for homes is met. “China’s genuine demand for housing is relatively strong,” as more than 11 million people are newly employed in urban areas each year, Wang Menghui, head of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said at a news conference yesterday. Wang also believed that a large number of people are eager to live in spacious homes, partly driven by COVID-19 control measures. China aims to offer 2.4 million units for affordable rental housing this year, Wang said, after 942,000 units in 40 cities with high population inflows helped meet demand from 3 million people last year. Property regulations are unlikely to be loosened across the board, analysts say. “China will maintain the continuity and stability of policy measures while strengthening the precision and coordination of such measures,” Wang said. Some local governments have recently rolled out a slew of measures to boost housing sales and buyer sentiment, including requiring smaller down payments for first-time homebuyers and allowing commercial banks to lower mortgage rates. The government must guard against excessive policy easing in the property sector pushing up the real estate market too fast, the Economic Daily said in a commentary Wednesday. (SD-Agencies) | 