China omitted President Xi Jinping’s official slogan on curbing housing speculation at a key economic policy meeting, underscoring a deeper shift toward supporting the property market.
Xi’s mantra that “housing is for living, not for speculation” was left out of the meeting by the Communist Party’s 24-member Politburo, its top decision-making body, which also vowed to optimize and adjust policies for the property sector. Policymakers said the tweak comes after demand and supply in the home market have seen “fundamental changes.”
The shift in rhetoric is unusual because the phrase had consistently been used by officials since 2016, when it appeared in a post-meeting statement for the first time as part of efforts to cool an overheating market. Since 2019, every April and July Politburo review had mentioned the slogan.
“It seems the government has recognized the importance of policy change in this sector to stabilize the economy,” said Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.
