4 % nationwide, with floor space newly constructed up by 22. 6 %, but completed acreage by merely 9. 1 %. 4. low - income households have difficulties in affordability. at present, nearly 10 million urban households whose per capita floor space of residential housing is below 10 square meters. among them, 4 million households receive subsistence allowances, accounting for 5. 5 % of the total number of urban households. at the same time, persistent price hike and slow development in small - and - medium - sized house lease market make it difficult for low - income households to purchase or rent houses in the market. the above problems, though limited to certain localities and created by structural imbalance, have huge impact on society due to the following reasons. first, mismatch between supply and demand is acute. from the demand side, there is a continuously strong demand as a result of higher income and faster urbanization. from the supply side, the insufficient aggregate demand is coupled with imbalanced mix of housing available and shortage of supply of small - and - medium - sized apartments. from january to october 2007, floor space completed stood at 232 million square meters, up 8. 8 % y - o - y. sold space grew by 33. 1 % yo - y to 489 million square meters, 2. 11 times of space completed, resulting in a slower growth of supply than that of demand. second, shortage of residential construction land and price hike of land, raw materials and wages push up sales prices. third, psychological expectations and housing price hike interact. urban residents prefer purchase to lease, early purchase to late purchase and big apartments to small apartments. after having purchased their own apartments, some people make speculative investment, which further pushes up housing prices. fourth, housing price hike in the international market is contagious. in recent years, the global housing market has witnessed faster price hike during a longer period time with far more wide - ranging impact than any other period of time before, not only in developed countries such as the us, uk, france, spain, italy, belgium, denmark, sweden and australia, but also in brazil, india, thailand and other developing countries. from 2001 to 2006, housing price in the us, france and the uk rose by 54. 9 %, 50 % and 85. 4 % respectively, while the single - year price hike in the three countries was 11. 32 % in 2005 for the us, 16. 25 % in 2005

economic work conference, implement the scientific approach to development, exercise tight monetary policies, strengthen regulation over real estate credit, improve management of real estate credit risks, speed up real estate credit restructuring, drive forward real estate financial innovation so as to promote the healthy development of the real estate market. second, streamline risk management stipulations. headquarters of commercial banks shall improve and unify bank - wide real estate credit management stipulations, and all their branches and sub - branches shall grant real estate loans in strict conformity with such stipulations. units and staff responsible for real estate financial businesses shall explain lending policies to their customers in order to safeguard the seriousness of credit policies. third, make sure that all relevant policies are put in place. principles and polices on real estate credit regulation are specified in the notice and supplementary notice. they key is implementation. mortgage refinance loans and additional mortgage loans shall be eradicated steadfastly to achieve zero mortgage refinance without specific information or real transactions and zero additional mortgages. commercial banks shall refrain from accepting applications with false information or certificates, and notify local banking associations. fourth, improve financial services for protective housing development. commercial banks, in addition to improving commercial credit risk management, shall restructure the credit mix to give priority to ordinary commercial housing and affordable housing and households capable of making repayment and applying for loans to buy self - occupied houses. at the same time, commercial banks shall improve their services for affordable housing and low - rent housing in the preconditions of risk control and in accordance with the state housing guarantee system. improve the low - rent housing system, regulate the construction and distribution of affordable housing and earnestly do a good job in housing guarantee for low - income households. fifth, go on with real estate financial innovation. real estate finance is an important part of financial innovation. if we attributed sub - prime crisis to financial innovation, we will run the risk of mistaking the phenomenon as the root cause. in recent years, real estate financial innovation has made initial achievements through concerted efforts. we should summarize experiences, continue to push ahead with financial innovation, improve the efficiency of resources allocation, identify and diversify financial risks in the real estate sector so as to promote the healthy development of the real estate financial market.