BEIJING — China has accelerated the development of government-subsidized rental housing as part of the country's efforts to better meet people's housing needs.

In the first nine months, 40 cities across the country have started the construction of 720,000 government-subsidized apartment units, accounting for 76.9 percent of their full-year target of 936,000 units, showed data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

The cities of Nanjing, Wuxi, Ningbo, Foshan, Changchun and Nanning have met their annual targets of adding government-subsidized rental housing, the ministry said.

The subsidized rental housing features low-cost and small apartments built to mainly address the housing demand of new dwellers and young people in big cities.

Developing subsidized rental housing is one of the priorities of housing development, said the housing ministry, adding that initial progress has been made and experience has been accumulated that can be replicated later.