China to have state standard on housing quality assessment ( 2003-11-11 22:41) (Xinhua)
China's housing quality
assessment system will be raised when the Ministry of Construction (MOC) issues
a new state standard next year.
Tong Yuezhong, deputy director of the MOC housing industrialization promotion
center, said here Tuesday that the current MOC housing quality assessment
system, started on a trial basis in 1999, had been adopted as China's first
national standard.
The international housing quality assessment system was initiated in France
shortly after the Second World War, and was soon adopted by most European and
American countries.
Tong said the MOC issued China's first regulation on commercial housing
quality assessment in 1999, aiming at promoting housing reform, which was
launched in 1998.
The MOC housing quality assessment system includes more than 380 items
concerning five major features on housing quality, granting all qualified
housing programs the rating of "A", "AA", or "AAA".
The system helped home buyers with reliable housing assessments and provided
developers with technical guidance, Tong noted.
The MOC says that the current housing quality assessment system is supported
by the public. One of the country's four state commercial banks, the Industrial
and Commercial Bank of China, had decided that all housing programs that passed
the MOC housing quality assessment had priority for loans.
Insurance giant the People's Insurance Company of China also decided to
launch a kind of quality insurance with all homes that passed the MOC housing
quality assessment.
The MOC housing quality assessment system has been adopted in most Chinese
cities, and thousands of buildings have passed the assessment.
