During the just-ended session of the National People's Congress, Premier Wen Jiabao raised several targets for the government to hit in controlling the overheated property for sale in Hong Kong sector.

His latest remarks emphasized raising the supply of property, stabilizing property prices and developing reasonably priced commercial housing for ordinary people.

The stress on increasing the property supply as the fix for property prices is a remarkable policy shift.

The State has obviously realized that the single-handed measure of curbing property prices does not work well. Instead, a rise in supply will probably ease the momentum of rocketing property prices.

Such a shift will prevail in the macro control over housing estates for quite some time. The shift acknowledges that the country has a strong demand for housing.

Boosting the property supply is a good resolution to the problems troubling the estate market. Yet, the land for housing development has become increasingly scarce, especially in big cities.

A practical solution to significantly boost the housing supply is to stimulate the sale of previously owned houses. Arrangements should be made to facilitate such transactions by lowering commissions, taxes and related fees.

Another important approach for raising the housing supply is to break up the monopoly in the real estate markets by encouraging developers of various business types.

Controlled by local government, land is the most important factor in property development. As the demand for property increases, land has become the source of big money for localities after they sell the land to commercial developers at high prices.

In fact, a city's property price has been seen to increase by at least several percentage points once commercial estate developers enter the local market. Price increases have been especially high in mid-sized cities and provincial capitals in central and western China.

Another obstacle to slowing the rise in estate prices is the monopoly by commercial developers. The authorities should allow individuals or companies to build non-commercial housing projects as long as they are properly qualified.

It is an important condition for creating a housing supply adapted to the needs of different social groups.

Commercial developers build luxury houses for the rich at market price. Qualified enterprises provide affordable housing for their employees at cost. The government builds low-rent houses or low-priced houses for low-income earners.