China vows to boost land supply to cool property prices******

BEIJING, May 14 (Reuters): China plans to provide a total of 218,000 hectares of land for building residential properties this year, a rise of 18.5 per cent from 2010, the nation's land ministry said. That includes 77,400 hectares of land to construct affordable housing, it said in a statement seen Friday. China has increased land supply for government-subsidised and small homes in the past two years to ease property prices for the benefit of first-time buyers. "We must strictly control the land supply for large and luxury residential properties and should provide more land for affordable housing and mid-to-small home units," the ministry of land and resources said in a statement published on its website. Beijing plans to build 10 million units of affordable housing, designed to meet demand from middle- and low- income households, this year, up from a target of 5.8 million in 2010. The ministry also said it would step up efforts to punish those developers who are found changing the original purpose of the land use or illegally transfer land. Some developers have built commercial properties on land allocated for affordable housing, prompting a government crackdown. "We must take effective measures to ensure land supply for building homes on the one hand and strictly regulate property developers to use land in a legal way to keep the market order," the ministry said. China has since 2009 taken a slew of measures to curb housing speculation, launching a maiden property tax, restricting purchases of multiple homes, lifting the down payment for home buyers, and raising interest rates.