China's State Council, or cabinet, is to send high-level officials to 11 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions to check on how the central government's macro control policies aimed at cooling down property markets are being enforced.

Teams of officials from the ministries of Construction, Land and Resources, the National Development and Reform Commission and other central authorities will be sent to Beijing, Tianjin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shandong, Hubei, Guangdong, Sichuan and Shaanxi.

The government began issuing policies in 2003 to stabilize the runaway property market.

Housing prices in many cities, however, have continued to soar. Some have reported annual rises of 20 percent.

In the face of rising public concern, the government earlier this year penned tougher policies, ordering local governments to increase the supply of cheaper and government-subsidized homes, and imposing controls on property ownership by foreigners.

In a related development, the Ministry of Construction has sent its own teams of officials to Shanghai and seven other cities to investigate the local property markets.

A six-member team arrived in Shanghai on Sept. 25, where they met with local officials and residents, and toured property projects.

China's central government has tightened controls over defiant local authorities ignoring the macro control policies.

On Wednesday, a State Council meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao decided to give a "serious warning" to two provincial leaders in central China's Henan Province for allowing the use of almost 1,000 hectares of farmland for a school campus despite the objections of central authorities.

A month ago, the chairman of the Inner Mongolian regional government and his two deputies were disciplined by the central government for failing to stop the building of an illicit thermal power station with a total investment of over US$300 million.

The government's stern measures seem to have produced results.

Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show the growth of China's urban fixed-asset investment declined in both July and August. The growth in the supply of broad money also dropped in August.

The situation in the housing sector has also improved slightly. NBS figures show that housing prices in 70 major cities rose by 5.5 percent in August, down 0.2 percentage points from July.

(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2006)