More supervision after buildings condemned for shoddy materials

Serious flaws found in six apartment buildings that led to them being condemned for demolition have prompted the city to strengthen supervision of the concrete industry.

The six half-constructed buildings in the Mingyuewan community, which were built near the Fifth Ring Road in Daxing district, were set to house low-income families.

Inspectors found that the cement used for the buildings was substandard and the local government ruled in early October that they had to be demolished.

Two of the six have already been razed and the other four will be demolished in the coming month or two, according to the developer Beijing Riyue Real Estate.

Wang Tao, the company's office director, said it will speed up the demolitions and reconstruction and try to make sure property owners can move into their homes before June.

"Our project includes both commercial residential housing and affordable housing for low-income families," Wang said.

"The former ones have almost all been finished and then we will mainly focus on the latter ones."

Wang added that the company has not received any requests from would-be buyers to cancel purchase contracts.

Applicants for affordable housing usually have to go through a one- to two-year process before they can get their admission numbers and purchase apartments.

It usually then takes another one to two years for the apartments to be built.

The problem with the six buildings was down to low-price concrete, which cost 248 yuan per cubic meter - nearly 20 percent less than usual - according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Beijing Zhuzong Group Co Ltd, the company that constructed the six buildings, said the substandard concrete was provided by its developer, Riyue.

Wang, from Riyue, said they chose a concrete provider affiliated to Zhuzong at the very beginning but the provider didn't stick to the terms of the contract because it had supply problems.

He said the decision to choose the replacement concrete provider was made by Riyue, Zhuzong and a supervisory organization.

Industry insiders said the reason low-price concrete is cheap is often down to the fact that it has too little cement in the mixture and too much sand, something that affects its strength.

Wang Qiang, an official with the commission, said the government will enhance quality supervision of the construction industry.

A campaign to eradicate the production of substandard concrete and withdraw manufacturing licenses from unqualified factories has been launched by the commission.

Six organizations that quality test construction projects, with judicial approval, will also be introduced into a citywide system of checking and examining the quality of housing projects.