Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan has pledged to stabilize soaring property prices by putting up more real estate for sale, standardizing the market and offering more and better houses to low-income families.

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Speaking at a recent State Council meeting on Beijing's property market, Zeng said: "The Beijing municipal government should channel more funds into low-rent housing schemes and standardize the construction, sale and distribution of low-cost affordable houses."

By the end of last year, 512 of the 657 cities had set up the low-rent housing scheme, and the Ministry of Construction ordered that it be extended to the rest of the country this year.

The meeting emphasized a combination of market mechanism and governmental regulations, Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

It's the government's responsibility to solve the basic housing problem of the low-income group, participants said.

The central government has taken measures to cool off the booming property market. They include an official mandate to build more small- and medium-sized houses and strengthened land appreciation tax collection on developers.

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