(Yicai Global) Nov. 9 -- The Beijing Municipal Government announced that the strict housing purchase restrictions in two areas of the city’s Tongzhou district that have been implemented since August 2015 would be lifted.

The Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Administrative Committee of Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, and the People’s Government of Tongzhou District yesterday issued notices on relevant policy adjustments for Taihu and Majuqiao, two areas that were assigned to the Beijing Economic Development Area but still followed Tongzhou’s house purchase restrictions.

Beijing released plans to relocate some municipal government offices to Tongzhou driving house prices to soar. Since August 2015, the district implemented the strictest housing purchase policy in the market, ruling that Beijing-registered households with already one house need to have house registration in Tongzhou or pay social insurance premiums and individual taxes in the district for at least three years before being able to buy a house there.

Non-Beijing families willing to purchase a house in Tongzhou need to pay the social insurance premium and individual tax in Beijing for five consecutive years and have paid social insurance premiums in Tongzhou for the previous three years.

The adjustment can optimize and improve the housing supply and demand relationship in the Economic-Technological Development Area, which is in line with Beijing’s policy orientation, Chen Wenjing, a market research director at the China Index Institute, told Yicai Global.

The new policy greatly benefits buyers in these two areas, enhancing the regional market activity and influencing the property market competition pattern in the Economic-Technological Development Area, said Chen Xiao, a senior analyst at the Research Center of Zhuge Qihang (Suzhou) Technology.

However, the notice cannot be regarded as a signal for the relaxation of the purchase restriction policy in Tongzhou or even Beijing, Chen added, noting that the changes in the housing purchase policy in the two areas were only a result of the adjustment of administrative divisions.

China’s household registration system is a basic state administrative system. The government collects, confirms, and registers basic information on the birth, death, kinship, and legal address of citizens in accordance with the law for them to enjoy local rights and interests in employment, education, and social welfare in the area.

Editor: Futura Costaglione