近日华尔街日报对中国房地产数据研究院陈晟院长关于中国要化解房地产库存为题进行了采访，采访内容如下：

Leaders of the world’s No. 2 economy face a vexing problem: How can they get its people to buy more houses?

China has a surplus of them. The size isn’t clear — economists say official statistics don’t show the depth of the problem. But they generally agree that most Chinese cities are ringed with empty apartment buildings and residential developments with varying degrees of completion, from projects where the ground hasn’t been broken to fully finished apartments waiting for someone to move in.

That’s bad news for the Chinese economy, and thus for the world. Empty houses discourage other homebuilders from breaking ground on new projects, meaning lost paychecks for construction workers and less business for suppliers of everything from bricks to steel beams to wiring to sofas. They also put downward pressure on home prices, which discourages consumers from spending by making them feel less well-off. All of that is contributing to China’s slowing growth and contributing to weak global demand for everything from iron ore to copper.

Fast-growing China has shrugged off similar worries before, most famously with Shanghai’s Pudong district, which went from white elephant to roaring tiger in a few short years.

Still, the current glut is getting official concern directly from the top. Last month, President Xi Jinping told a meeting of economic and financial officials that China must resolve the housing inventory situation and ensure the health of the property sector.

The comments have prompted real estate developers and investors to anticipate that the government will rev up efforts to winnow down that glut — a strategy that the industry calls destocking. Basically that means either increasing the incentives for people to buy homes or adding people to the ranks of potential homebuyers. (Destroying buildings, while making for cool pictures, isn’t considered a viable option.)

The comments have helped shares of Chinese property developers rally in recent weeks despite continued sluggish growth in property investment. Still, experts warn that prompting people to buy houses can be difficult.

In March, the government had started rolling out loosening measures such as multiple interest rate cuts, looser home purchase rules, and tax reductions. That helped property markets in the largest, most affluent cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen, which have seen prices recover to the point where they are beginning to look frothy. But many small and mid-sized cities continue to struggle.

A government think tank floated the possibility of tax deductions on mortgage payments. Others say officials could help by allowing lenders to securitize housing loans — that is, bundle them together and sell them to investors. That could lead to more money for potential homebuyers in smaller cities.

Another potential solution involves people displaced by development and urbanization. Typically, when knocking down hamlets and villages to make way for offices, malls and apartment buildings, local politicians make sure the displaced get put into newly built homes. Instead, China could take steps to help local governments purchase existing homes for the displaced, said Chen Sheng, who heads the government-backed China Real Estate Data Academy.

China’s vast rural population may be another answer. Right now China limits the mobility of its people by tying their social benefits to where they live, a system known as hukou. People with a rural hukou would struggle to get medical care or education for their children if they moved to a city.

But China is looking to increase urbanization as a way to foster consumption. At the end of 2014, China’s urbanization rate was 54.77%, and Beijing has plans to raise it to 60% by 2020.

Those urbanizers could help fill homes. The central government could give local governments increased autonomy to manage residency permit allocations, said Mr. Chen, adding that “some cities are able to provide hukou permits to rural residents without requiring them to give up their land and other rural entitlements. They can have both and then decide which one they prefer.”

That has helped a few third and fourth tier cities attract more home buyers, such as Longyan city in Fujian province and Tongling in Anhui province, where a significant number of home buyers are rural residents, Mr. Chen said.

Others voice caution on pinning hopes on urbanization as a source of housing demand. For one, no matter how affordable a home in a city might be, it isn’t clear that rural residents would find jobs waiting for them.

“Rural dwellers will think about job prospects and social benefits when they consider a move into the cities,”said Song Huiyong, research director of real estate consultancy Shanghai Centaline Property. Referring to China’s old system of assigning jobs and offering guaranteed employment benefits, he added, “nowadays there is no such thing as centralized job allocation or iron rice bowls, so what are they going to do when they move?”

China’s graying population could also hinder efforts to stimulate demand. The recently scrapped one-child policy could help to boost demand for bigger homes, but analystsaren’t holding their breath.

“Even though China’s recent two-child policy can help to drive demand, we are pessimistic and we think birth rates are likely to remain low,” said Chen Jie, a real estate professor at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, at a real estate panel Wednesday.  “The cost of raising a child has become too high.”