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Thread: Too expensive to die!
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[quote=FRANKENSTEIN,279724]Cemetery Plot Prices in Beijing Overtake Apartments (Update1) By Dune Lawrence April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese consumers, facing the fastest inflation in 11 years, are finding that the rising cost of living has reached into the afterlife as buying a graveyard plot becomes more expensive than a home. Five of the capital's major cemeteries charge as much as 30,000 yuan ($4,273) per square meter for a standard plot, compared with an average of 20,000 yuan per square meter for an apartment in the city center, the English-language China Daily reported today. Land scarcity, real-estate speculation and rapid urbanization are fueling soaring prices for graveyard plots as an increasingly affluent population seeks to provide deceased loved ones with a more lavish send-off. The government issued rules in November aimed at encouraging cremation and stamping out profiteering in tomb prices. The issue is particularly sensitive as the world's most populous nation prepares to observe the Qingming, or tomb sweeping, festival on April 4. The government designated the ritual as a national holiday for the first time this year. To pay their respects, Chinese visit the graves of their ancestors to make offerings of food, flowers and fake money. Burning effigies of houses and cars for use in the afterlife has become increasingly popular as average incomes have risen. November's rules call on areas with high population density and a shortage of land to cremate the dead rather than bury them. They also ban urban residents from buying burial plots in rural cemeteries, prohibit the building of cemeteries on arable land, forest land and city parks, and impose fines of up to three times any profit gained from breaking the rules. Casket Costs The regulations will be ``fine-tuned'' by the end of this year, after 110,000 ``suggestions'' were received from the public, Dou Yupei, vice minister for civil affairs, said during a Web cast on the central government's Web site today to urge people to ``show civilized behavior'' during the Qingming festival. He didn't provide details. Funeral costs are also rising, the China Daily reported. A marble casket costs about 3,000 yuan at the Babaoshan Funeral Home in Beijing, roughly the same as the average monthly wage in the capital in 2006. A basic funeral in the southern city of Shenzhen costs at least 4,000 yuan, according to the newspaper. Inflation in China has quickened to the fastest pace in 11 years as pork prices almost doubled in the past year and soybean oil jumped 64 percent. Overall housing prices in 70 major cities surged 11.3 percent in January from a year earlier, the biggest increase since at least 2005, when records began, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. Prices climbed 10.9 percent in February. About 13 million people migrate to China's cities each year from the countryside, Qi Ji, vice minister of China's new housing ministry said last month. [/quote]
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