China to increase residential land supplies this year

China will increase residential land supplies by more than 20 percent this year in order to further restrain property prices, according to a plan released by land resource authorities Tuesday.

The Ministry of Land and Resources said in a statement that the government plans to provide a total of 172,600 hectares of residential land this year, up 21.3 percent from 2011.

The amount of land to be doled out is double the annual average of 87,300 hectares supplied over the last five years, the ministry said.

The ministry said 79.3 percent of the land supplies will be used for affordable housing development, as well as for small- and medium-sized commercial housing, up 0.7 percentage points from last year.

A total of 50,100 hectares of land, or 29.1 percent of the total, will be used to build affordable homes, the ministry said.

The government plans to begin construction on more than seven million affordable housing units this year.

Construction on 10.43 million units began last year, with 4.32 million units completed during the year.

Local land authorities have also been asked to increase land supplies for regular commercial housing, strictly control land use for high-end housing and refrain from supplying any land for villas, according to the ministry.