'King of all land sales' gets sour reaction from official press

One can only wonder what Premier Wen Jiabao thought of the news that a premium site for housing in Beijing sold for a record price last week - just three days after he reaffirmed his commitment to policies aimed at cooling the property market.

Reactions by state media to the 'king of all land sales', however, suggest some unease in the central government about whether its programme may be faltering amid a slowing economy that relies heavily on property investments.

The residential parcel in the capital's Haidian district was sold to a private developer for 2.63 billion yuan (HK$3.23 billion) - or 33,831 yuan per square metre - in a hotly contested auction last Tuesday. This beat the previous record for residential land sales of 29,859 yuan per square metre, set in 2009.

If you subtract the 16,400 square metres that must be set aside for subsidised housing, the lot sold for around 41,500 yuan per square metre, making it the most expensive residential site on the mainland.

It was a similar record-breaking land sales two years ago - and a corresponding jump in home prices - that spurred the central government to enact policies to cool down the property market.

However, the People's Daily tried to play down the significance of the Beijing sale by urging the public not to read too much into it.