CONSTRUCTION was started on a public rental housing project, called “Xin’an” on March 30, the first of a collection of government-subsidized apartments planned for the next three years.

    Located in the Qingdao Economic and Technological Development Zone, the rental housing project covers 103,334 square meters of land and has a planned floor area of 240,000 square meters.

    Besides, covering an area of around 40,000 square meters, public service facilities like kindergartens will be constructed, as well as parking facilities to house more than 700 vehicles.

    With a total investment of 800 million yuan, the housing will be rented to low-income families, migrant workers and people who’ve recently entered the workforce.

    Deputy head of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Qi Ji said the start of the construction marked progress in providing affordable housing.

    Qingdao has started the construction of government-subsidized housing totaling 6.7 million square meters since 2007, supported by an investment of more than 10 billion yuan and benefiting 100,000 low-and-middle-income families.(Li Hao, Han Guangliang)