ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the attempts by the Chinese authorities to develop a guideline land price system at the beginning of the land use rights reforms to reflect the official view of the pricing of land. It explains the Chinese authorities’ approach, an examination of the socialist economic concept of value as a whole is conducted to illustrate how official thinking is influenced by economic traditions. The socialist economic view of value, which concentrates on the objective judgement of value, therefore lacks the vision of the inter-relationship between the sphere of production and the sphere of exchange for these kinds of commodities. The real estate industry is an important element in most economies. Reforms in the real estate market are different from other price reforms in the consumer goods markets in China as prices existed in the consumer goods markets before any formal price reforms were undertaken.
