The Chinese government will implement a nationwide reform in July to make real estate statistics more objective and reasonable, according to a report in Beijing-based Economic Information Daily.

More than 100 statists chosen from 30 Chinese provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have attended a training course on real estate price statistics held in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province. 

"With the rapid development of China's housing industry, current official statistics do not fully represent the general real estate situation or meet the public demand," Hu Xiufu, an official with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), was quoted as saying.

The real estate market is one of the most sensitive and controversial sectors in China. Residents of big cities are concerned about housing prices, which have been rising continuously since China phased-out free government-provided houses in the early 1990s. 

At present, Hu said, statistics on China's real estate market are issued by different government departments and some are inconsistent.

Last year, the country's average housing price rose by 14.4 percent, according to the NBS. But, local department statistics told a different story early this year --  Beijing's housing price level had been dropping.

After seven government departments issued last month a new policy to cool China's rocketing housing prices, some statistics showed that the price level in major metropolises decreased, but other statistics indicated no obvious changes.

The inconsistencies have led to a puzzled public.

A real estate expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the Economic Reference that even the NBS figures are just a kind of reference to his research, which mainly depends on his own investigation.

With the housing industry booming in some medium-sized cities, NBS' current investigation sample, which only covers 35 cities across the country, is not large enough to represent the overall development, Hu said, adding that some burgeoning cities must be included in the sample under the new circumstances.

Taking Shandong as an example, the previous NBS real estate sample only included two coastal cities, Jinan and Qingdao, in east China's Shandong Province. As the two cities can't represent the true picture of the estate market in Shandong, the government has decided to add two more cities, Yantai and Jining, to the sample list of Shandong. 

During the forthcoming reform on statistical method, the NBS will include another 35 cities in its investigation sample. This means that sample cities represent more than 80 percent of the total real estate investment in the country, Hu said.

From July on, the 70 listed cities will be required to monthly report their housing price index to the NBS.

"New statistical materials provided by those cities will include more indexes and be more timely and all-sided," Hu said.

The reform on current statistical work in housing industry is "necessary," said Zhang Chengyao, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "The statistical work by far, is far from satisfactory," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2005)