Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan has urged the Beijing Municipal government to supply low-income families with more and better houses.

Zeng made the remarks after hearing reports on regulating Beijing's real estate market at a recent meeting held by the State Council.

"The municipal government should channel more funds into the low-rent housing system and standardize the construction, sales and circulation of low-cost affordable housing," said Zeng.

Zeng urged the city to better regulate residential housing construction to more efficiently meet housing demand.

The meeting emphasized a combination of market mechanism and governmental regulations.

It is the government's role to gradually solve the basic housing problem of low-income families, said participants to the meeting.

Beijing will build 10 million square meters of low-cost affordable housing over the next three years, official figures show.

Beijing will also begin to build 300,000 square meters of low-rent housing this year.

Housing prices in some large Chinese cities are still rising quickly and medium-and small-sized commercial residential houses are still in short supply, said meeting participants.

(Xinhua News Agency February 26, 2007)