China's Xi says to maintain principle property is not for speculation

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will maintain the principle that houses are for people to live in, not for speculation, President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday at the opening of a key Communist Party congress.

The principle was first introduced by China's top leaders at an economic conference last December, as the country sought

to crack down on rampant speculative buying in its property market through a flurry of government curbs.

(Reporting by Christian Shepherd and Stella Qiu; Writing by Yawen Chen; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)