The central government has approved 11.3 billion yuan ($1.81 billion) of public housing fund mortgage loans for the Shanghai municipal government to support the city's government-subsidized housing program, sources said on Dec 19.

Tasked with building 170,000 units of subsidized housing this year, land-scarce Shanghai is facing a severe financial strain. The floor area of the subsidized housing to be built will amount to 12 million square meters.

"We are pressured by the huge volume of construction work and capital shortage," said Liu Haisheng, director of the Shanghai Municipal Housing Support and Building Administration Bureau.

The public housing fund will definitely help ease off the capital strain for the city's subsidized housing program, which offers affordable housing to medium and low-income families, Chen Jie, executive director of Fudan University's Housing Policy Studies Center, was quoted as saying by Guangdong-based newspaper 21st Century Business Herald.

If the several hundred billion yuan public housing fund can be used to support the subsidized housing program, the construction progress will greatly improve, Chen added.