Cranes are seen at a construction site of a housing complex in Beijing. Photo: VCG

 
China has completed a comprehensive, nationally unified real estate registry, Minister of Natural Resources Wang Guanghua announced on Tuesday, marking a major breakthrough in the country's decade-long effort to establish a unified property registration system.

The move could have profound implications for the real estate market as well as the broader Chinese economy, laying a solid foundation for property sector development, as it would offer regulators a full, clear picture of real estate ownership and enable them to make better policy adjustments, analysts said. 

The move could also pave the way for a widely discussed property tax, though it does not automatically mean such a tax is imminent. 

Wang made the announcement during a national meeting about the registration of natural resources and immovable properties on Tuesday, which means that after 10 years of hard work, a unified registry covering all sites and all properties has been fully established, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday.

In March 2013, China decided to establish a unified property registry by consolidating various registration work scattered around multiple government agencies. 

"The move is highly important, and it marks an important institutional breakthrough in the real estate industry," Yan Yuejin, research director at Shanghai-based E-house China R&D Institute, said in a note sent to the Global Times on Tuesday. 

Yan said that the move is conducive to gaining a deep understanding of the real estate market, as it addresses long-standing issues such as scattered registration information across the country. "This can be understood as the realization of nationally unified real estate information," he said. 

The move is conducive to the sound and sustainable development of the country's vast real estate industry, as it helps close loopholes in the registration process that could be exploited by some for making profits, analysts noted. 

"From the perspective of overall economic development, the era when people used to speculate in real estate to obtain huge profits is basically over," Tian Yun, a Beijing-based veteran economist, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Tian noted that the unified registration system will offer central authorities a clearer picture of the overall real estate market, including the trends.

Hu Qimu, deputy secretary general of the digital real economies integration Forum 50, said that the move will help ensure the stable operation of the real estate market and support China's efforts to prevent systemic risks. 

"A unified registration system means high-level authorities will gain objective data. If we get real estate data that is distorted, it will not help us to manage the macro-economy," Hu told the Global Times on Tuesday. 

Another specific and yet sweeping change that could be brought about by the unified registration system could be the implementation of a property tax, which has been under discussion for many years.

"I think the property tax might be introduced soon, as the [unified registration system] indicates that some preparatory work is now completed," Hu said, noting that the country has been laying the groundwork for the property tax for many years, including collecting information. 

China has been carrying out trials of property tax reforms in some areas, after the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, in October 2021 adopted a decision to authorize the State Council to pilot property tax reforms in selected regions. 

While the unified registry could help the implementation of a potential property tax, the move on Tuesday has much broader goals, and its establishment cannot be simply understood as the collection of a property tax, Yan said.