A few days ago, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development responded to the suggestion made by Mei Shiwen,a representative of the National People's Congress, on vigorously promoting prefabricated buildings in rural revitalization.  According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, prefabricated buildings represent the development trend of new construction methods and are important changes in construction methods, construction techniques, building materials and construction organizations. The promotion and application of prefabricated buildings in rural revitalization is also an important development direction. The representative’s suggestions on accelerating the legislative process, strengthening technical support, and strengthening public opinion guidance are highly targeted and instructive.

Exploring and developing steel structure prefabricated farm houses in many places

In recent years, the Ministry and relevant departments have actively promoted the popularization and application of prefabricated buildings in rural areas.

During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development formulated the "13th Five-Year Plan of Action for Prefabricated Buildings", "Management Measures for Prefabricated Building Industry Bases" and other documents, laying a certain foundation for promoting the application of rural prefabricated buildings.

Since 2019, the Ministry has combined work on the construction of modern livable farm houses, the renovation of rural dilapidated houses, and the earthquake-resistant renovation of farm houses. In prefabricated reinforced concrete structures, light steel structures, wooden structures and other types of prefabricated buildings, the prefabricated steel structure is as the main promotion type to guide Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Hebei and other places to explore and develop steel structure prefabricated farm houses. According to preliminary statistics, about 100,000 steel-structure prefabricated rural houses have been built nationwide.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has investigated and understood the application of prefabricated buildings in Japan, the United States and other countries in rural areas, analyzed and summarized the practices of promoting steel structure prefabricated farm houses in Zhejiang, Hebei and other places, and learned from the mature experience of foreign countries to collect domestic and foreign farm house construction management systems , and further improve and promote the implementation of prefabricated farm house construction policies and measures.

Further consolidate the technological and industrial foundation

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has formulated and issued the "Technical Standards for Prefabricated Steel Structure Residential Buildings" to provide technical standard support in terms of integrated design, production of parts and components, construction and installation, quality acceptance, maintenance and management. It organized and identified 30 cities and 195 companies as the first batch of prefabricated construction demonstration cities and industrial bases. About 50 steel-structure prefabricated farm house production companies were formed with an annual production capacity of about 5 million tons. 

The Ministry of Science and Technology regards prefabricated buildings as a key scientific research task. In 2016, it launched the implementation of the "Green Building and Building Industrialization" key special project in the national key research and development plan. 1.3 billion yuan was allocated. It focused on the design and deployment of the entire chain of technology research and development about the basic theories, design, standard specifications, testing and evaluation, component production, construction and industrialization of prefabricated buildings.

In 2019, the “Ecological Structure of Prefabricated Houses in Villages and Towns” was deployed and implemented in the key technical innovation projects of green and livable villages and towns, which basically solved the key technologies of anti-corrosion, sound insulation, fire resistance and durability improvement common to steel structure prefabricated farm houses.

Construction costs need to be further reduced

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development stated that the steel structure prefabricated farm house was a new type of structure and construction system. Social awareness still needed to be improved, and the construction cost needed to be further reduced. Except for some farmers who were willing to accept new things, most farmers hesitated about it due to traditional concepts.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has guided local governments to explore various support policies, strengthen publicity and guidance, and encourage local governments to formulate supporting policies such as subsidies with rewards, credit support and quality insurance. For example, Zhejiang Province will provide support of 200 yuan per square meter by the provincial financial subsidy and 100 yuan by the county-level financial subsidy, and at the same time, it will provide housing construction farmers with loan support of not more than 300,000 yuan.  Lin'an District of Hangzhou also guides enterprises to purchase 3,000 yuan per household construction insurance for farmers who build houses, so as to relieve farmers from their worries.

In the next step, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development will work with relevant departments to make prefabricated buildings an important content in special planning and key tasks in the fields of rural revitalization and the settlement environment construction for urban and rural human during the 14th Five-Year Plan. With steel structure prefabricated farm houses as the focus, we will drive the development of prefabricated buildings, guide all regions to actively promote prefabricated farm houses in accordance with local conditions, accelerate the transformation of traditional farm house construction methods, and improve the quality of rural housing.