Cooling heated Hainan
Counter measures
Efforts to cool the overheating property market are already in progress.
The province will step up affordable housing supplies for low-income residents and improve the housing accumulation fund system, said Luo Baoming, deputy to the 11th NPC and Governor of Hainan Province at a press conference during this year's NPC session.
Measures will also be taken to streamline the property market and clamp down on speculation, said Luo.
The most urgent task is to hammer out a reasonable blueprint for the island to focus on tourism and other service sectors, and fend off blind real estate investments, said Zhou Ganshi, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, at the Boao International Tourism Forum held in March in Hainan.
It is also necessary to increase local residents' income and repair the social safety net to help underpin the weak economic foundation, he added.
Property developers on the island should attach importance to environmental protection and energy conservation in project location, design and construction, said Li Bingren, chief economist of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, at the forum.
Yu Jinhua of Huatai United Securities, echoed Li's opinion. "What made Hainan unique were less crowded beaches, cheap and delicious seafood and green mountains, instead of mushrooming houses," he said.
Yu said that Hainan still has a long way to go before becoming an international tourism resort.
"The transport bottleneck, for instance, needs to be removed," he said. "The warm, humid climate makes Hainan ideal for pineapples, coconuts and mangoes, but many farmers in the deep mountains have no way of moving their products out."