It seems that not even the dead can escape the mainland's inflationary pressures and real estate speculation.
With Tuesday's Ching Ming Festival, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day, approaching, many mainlanders who find housing prices unaffordable are also complaining about skyrocketing tomb prices.
Guangzhou's Southern Metropolis News reported this week that small tombs in the city centre could cost between 60,000 (HK$71,000) and 130,000 yuan (HK$154,000) for a 20-year lease, while new apartments in Guangdong's provincial capital sold for 1,207 yuan a square foot, with 70 years of property rights.
It said there were cases where, instead of one coffin, five to six urns were buried in urns in a tomb.
The newspaper quoted staff from Guangzhou's cemeteries as saying that prices were likely to appreciate rapidly because the supply of burial plots was unable to meet demand.
In Changchun , the provincial capital of Jilin , an upmarket tomb could cost as much as 288,000 yuan, enough to buy a 484 sq ft city centre apartment, Changchun's City Evening News reported. Budget tombs sold for 35,000 yuan, compared to an average housing price of 650 yuan per sq ft.
The report said tomb prices in Changchun had jumped nearly 20 per cent in the past year.
