On December 13, the annual Central Economic Work Conference concluded in Beijing. This was the first Central Economic Work Conference since the new Xi-Li leadership took office, and the meeting defined six major tasks for economic work in 2014. Among them, it was mentioned that efforts must be made to solve the housing problem, increase the construction and supply of affordable housing such as low-rent housing and public rental housing, and carry out shantytown renovation.
     
      The industry will all notice that among the six tasks deployed at this Central Economic Work Conference, there was no explicit mention of commercial housing or property market regulation work, nor was urbanization mentioned. For this reason, some media reviewed the contents of recent Central Economic Work Conferences and found that in the past five years (2008-2012), all involved commercial housing content, among which 2011 and 2012 continuously stressed “adhering to property market regulation without wavering.” This time it was not mentioned, and it feels somewhat “unprecedented.”
 
      It is true that this Central Economic Work Conference did not mention commercial housing or property market regulation work, but it is not factual to say that urbanization was not mentioned either. On December 13, 2013, the first Central Urbanization Work Conference, which also concluded on the same day, proposed six major tasks for advancing urbanization. Would a dedicated urbanization work conference not carry more weight than a sentence or two at the economic work conference? The meeting pointed out: to advance urbanization, it is necessary both to optimize the macro layout and to improve urban micro-spatial governance. China's main functional zone planning has made arrangements for the overall layout of urbanization, proposing the “two horizontal and three vertical” urbanization strategic pattern, and this blueprint must be carried through to the end. It can be seen that the central cities of newly rising urban agglomerations in the future will become the fastest-developing cities in the era of urbanization and rail transit.

In fact, the absence of commercial housing and property market regulation content from the Central Economic Work Conference does not mean there will be any change in the central government's property market regulation. Rather, before this, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee had already stated the need to organically combine letting the market play a decisive role in resource allocation with better leveraging the role of the government, and to adhere to achieving survival of the fittest through market competition. The government should strengthen rigid constraints on standards such as environmental protection and safety, intensify law enforcement, and severely punish and heavily fine those who damage the ecological environment. The content of the Central Economic Work Conference proposed striving to solve the housing problem, increasing the construction and supply of affordable housing such as low-rent housing and public rental housing, and carrying out shantytown renovation. This itself is a regulatory measure for the commercial housing and real estate market.

Carrying out shantytown renovation itself includes issues such as high commercial housing prices and the existence of bubbles. Obviously, commercial housing and property market regulation work should mainly be adjusted by letting the market play a decisive role in resource allocation; striving to solve the housing problem, increasing the construction and supply of affordable housing such as low-rent housing and public rental housing, and carrying out shantytown renovation are mainly about giving play to the government's role in guaranteeing housing for disadvantaged people. This “dual-track system” is the implementation model stated at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee for organically combining letting the market play a decisive role in resource allocation with better leveraging the role of the government.

In this regard, Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Qi Ji clearly disclosed the “dual-track” approach immediately after the meeting. He said that to deepen housing system reform and solve the problem of the people having a place to live, it is necessary to adhere to the direction of market-oriented reform, give play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, stimulate market vitality, and meet the people's demand for self-occupied and improved housing. At the same time, the government must “fill in the gaps” and provide public housing security services that meet basic needs for those who face housing difficulties due to inadequate labor skills, insufficient employment, low incomes, and other reasons. As a media professional, how can one fail to recognize even such issues, and how can one correctly interpret policy and guide society?

Therefore, the absence of commercial housing and property market regulation content from the Central Economic Work Conference is not “unprecedented”; rather, there is no need to repeat it. The Central Economic Work Conference is earnestly implementing the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee. We must not simplistically misread the central government's spirit; otherwise, our public opinion will not only fail to provide positive energy and play a positive publicity role, but will instead lead to negative effects that cannot be underestimated. This should be a major taboo for the media, and for this reason, media professionals should bear a heavy sense of responsibility.

Editor: Wu Yue