Housing for lower-income families has and should become an important driver of China's stable economic growth in the years ahead, because of weakening exports and the sloppy recovery of the global economy.

Work on 10 million affordable housing units started this year and construction of another 7 million will begin in 2012, a central government meeting said on Thursday. That the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has signed a document, on behalf of the State Council, with local governments to ensure they honor their commitments to the program shows the central government's resolve on the issue.

The affordable housing program is an important part of the central government's macro-control policy, which will increase domestic consumption both directly and indirectly.

The construction of such houses will help maintain enough demand for steel, cement and other construction materials. Also, the increasing number of low-income residents who buy affordable houses will have to spend money in decorating their new homes, increasing domestic consumption directly.

With housing prices rising rapidly in the past couple of years, middle- and low-level income people couldn't afford to buy a house. Affordable houses will not only help them buy a house and improve their living conditions, but also leave them with money to spend on other things, which will indirectly boost domestic consumption.

Besides, providing lower-income residents with relatively better living conditions through government subsidy is a good way of redistributing social wealth and narrowing the widening income gap.

The central economic conference, which concluded more than a week ago, emphasized stable growth as the major macroeconomic policy for next year. It is obvious that the affordable housing program is of significance for social and economic stability both.

But the implementation of the program is not without its difficulties, for local governments can sell the huge pieces of land they acquire for the housing program to developers at much higher prices. That's why many local governments are not enthusiastic about supporting the affordable housing program in letter and spirit. In this sense, whether a local government does a good job of the affordable housing program will be a test of how well it is serving the people. No wonder, the central government has made it an important benchmark to assess the performance of local government leaders.

By prodding local governments to help solve the problem of lack of funds for affordable housing, the central government will also make local leaders understand that their job is not only to make money, but also to improve the life of the people.

Let's hope, the affordable housing program kills several birds with one stone.