While a land shortage in China is blamed for increasing housing prices, more than 11,000 hectares of land has been left idle across the country, according to China’s top land watchdog.
To date, the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) has identified almost 2,208 illegal land use cases that cover 10,300 hectares across China, with 2,044 idle land cases.
Idle land made up nearly 90 percent of the total amount of illegal land in use at end-May 2010, said Liao Yonglin, director at the MLR’s Department of Land Use and Administration.
Chen Qian, a property market analyst said more idle land in the country means higher prices, adding that the continuing cycle leads to a surge in housing prices.
Local Chinese governments have identified 2,815 cases of idle land as of end-May, with 875 cases of land remaining unused for over five years, according to ministry statistics.
“In order to control housing prices, we will release information on any real estate developer who tries to hoard land in any way to financial supervision and administration departments, making bank loans impossible for those developers,” said Liao.
However, Liao noted that improper administration in planning or demolition by local governments has caused over 60 percent of the idle land cases.
Yan Jinming, a land management professor at Renmin University of China, said the government should think of how to supply land on time, rather than delaying the administrative process, which leads to idle land.
“If all idle land is placed under construction, it would be a great relief to the country’s feverish housing market,” he said.
He added that the idle land could create at least 2.5 million 90 sq m housing units, which are nearly half of China’s average housing supply annually.