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Residential Property Market Opening to 'Outsiders'

Beijing's property market should prosper further when the municipal government lifts the restriction on foreigners--and Chinese from outside the city--buying residential housing in the capital, China Daily reported.

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Land, Resources and Housing Management has announced that it will officially remove the distinction between residential housing sold to local people and that to outsiders from September 1. Currently foreigners, and Chinese from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, can only choose housing from a restricted selection. Mainland Chinese without a permanent residence permit for Beijing are also affected. But next month these so-called outsiders will be able to choose from all housing on the commercial market at the same prices as local people would pay.

Beijing is the first mainland city to completely remove this distinction, although small pilot programs have been carried out in areas of southern China's Guangdong Province.