The timetable for a regulation on real estate registration announced by the State Council is a necessary step toward building an open and transparent national property information platform.

According to the document issued on Thursday, a unified system on real estate registration intended to protect the security of property transactions and effectively protect the legal rights of property owners, will be introduced and implemented next year.

Such a system will remove some of the obstacles to the adoption of a nationwide property tax, which is one of the most forcible cards the government still has left to play in its bid to cool the domestic housing market.