Jan. 21 – The possibility of the government implementing property tax this year remains slim since more preparations need to be done despite pilot property tax programs already in place around the country.

Since the start of the year, there have been speculation that Beijing may impose a property tax to cool down the real estate market which reported sales ballooning by 75 percent to RMB4.4 trillion last year.

The chief economist with the think tank, State Information Center, Zhu Baoliang, told Reuters that it was unlikely that China would start collecting the tax this year. He said: “Property tax is a very complicated issue and will not be rolled out any time soon.”

China will be very careful not to over tighten its real estate policies, Zhu added saying that it would wait and see the outcome of measures already taken. Real estate sales is an important factor to a country’s economy  contributing 10 percent to the total gross domestic product.