Real Estate Speculators Spur Housing Price Hikes in China

BEIJING — China’s up-and-coming money men, having sent the country’s novice stock markets lurching between boom and bust, are now “cooking the ground”--feverishly speculating in real estate.

From tropical Hainan island in the south to the industrial rust belt of the north, speculators everywhere in China are “chao dipi,” which literally translates as “frying up the ground.”

Last year, housing prices doubled on Hainan, jumped 55% in Fujian province and shot up 110% in northeast China’s Changchun city--all fueled by speculative fever, according to data in the official press.

“China’s economic vocabulary is too limited; all people talk about is ‘hot’ and ‘not hot,’ ” complained Meng Xiaosu, president of China National Real Estate Development Group Corp.

Meng wants China to slow down the speculation but not stop the development necessary to house China’s growing population, which now stands at 1.2 billion.

The government seems to agree with Meng’s analysis that pure speculation has to be stopped.

Government departments are currently drafting regulations to force foreign land investors--mainly Hong Kong and Taiwanese speculators--to put 25% of the proposed development capital into a property before being allowed to sell it, an official newspaper said.