Liu Qi, mayor of the Chinese capital, disclosed the news at the ongoing fourth session of the 11th Beijing Municipal People's Congress, which opened Saturday.

"More than 40 million square meters of residential buildings are scheduled to be completed within five years," the mayor said, adding that Beijing also plans to remodel its existing poor-quality buildings, roughly about three million square meters.

Priority will be given to the building of low-cost residential buildings in order to meet the needs of those with middle and low income, with some 1.5 million square meters of low-cost residential buildings expected to be completed within the year, according to the mayor.

Statistics show that in the 1996-2000 period, Beijing invested some 142 billion yuan to build 59.8 million square meters of residential buildings. By the end of 2000, the average living space of Beijing's township residents was 16.2 square meters.

(People’s Daily 02/06/2001)