News - China Development Research Foundation

CDRF Held the International Symposium on Social Housing Policies

On August 7, 2012, the China Development Research Foundation (CDRF) held in Beijing the International Symposium on Social Housing Policies--Intensifying Housing Security for Everyone. This conference conducts in-depth discussions on a variety of topics, such as the implementation and effect of China’s social housing policies, international experience for social housing, Chinese local practice of social housing projects, land and financing for social housing projects. Over 120 domestic and foreign participants attend the conference, including government officials from the Development Research Center of the State Council, Ministry of Land and Resources, Leading Group of Central Financial and Economic Affairs and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development; academic experts from research institutes such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Chinese Academy of Social Science; representatives from local governments and foreign delegates from Singapore Housing & Development Board and German Public Private Real Estate and Housing Union, etc.

The participants all agree that social housing projects is a project for people’s well-being, which is expected to be a great leap-forward development to enable social equity for housing distribution, promote urbanization and safeguard steady economic growth. It is also an important component for the target of realizing a well-off society by 2020. Chinese government announces to construct 36 million units of social housing during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, which will be the largest-scale social housing project in the world. This policy will benefit hundreds of millions of low-income people by safeguarding and improving their housing conditions.

The participants reach a consensus that after two decades’ efforts, particularly the large-scale construction in recent years, China has accumulated relatively abundant experience in constructing social housing. Local governments formulate lots of effective mechanisms through active exploration, and construct a large number of social housing, which witnesses the initial success of this project. Meanwhile, lots of participants point out some outstanding difficulties and problems, such as imbalanced housing supply and demand, and substandard management. Based on these discussions, participants put forward many suggestions for a long-term, stable, mature and effective social housing mechanism.

CDRF has completed its research report of China’s social housing policies. This report conducts thorough studies of housing security from the perspective of Chinese urbanization and proposes feasible policy recommendations. In addition, CDRF subsidizes many government agencies, research institutes and universities on 16 sub-projects of housing security via public tendering. These research results are also compiled into CDRF’s research report to facilitate conference discussions.

The conference and research results have aroused widespread awareness and support from all walks of society.

In parallel with the conference, CDRF also holds an exhibition of excellent social housing projects as well as energy-efficient and environment-friendly housing technologies, in order to showcase Chinese achievement of local social housing construction as well as foreign cutting-edge housing technologies.