Even as they complain about soaring downtown house prices, Chinese are finding that accommodation in the afterlife is just as pricey.

An austere tomb in a cemetery located on the outskirts of Beijing is priced at 2,500 yuan (US$321) per square meter, almost 14 times more than it was 10 years ago.

China's Ministry of Civil Affairs blames speculative purchases of tomb land as the reason for the price hikes and is considering a ban.

Cemeteries will only be allowed to sell tombs to customers with death certificates of relatives or friends, according to a draft regulation on funeral and interment the Ministry is now revising.

Those violating the regulation will face fines of up to 500,000 yuan (US$64,000), the regulation says.

"But speculation is not the only factor," said an analyst. "The fact that Chinese traditionally value a happy afterlife has helped create a market."

Instead of small single tombs, customers prefer group tombs for family members and ancestors who want to be reunited in the afterworld, said a cemetery staff member.

A decorated European-style 18-square-meter marble tomb could be priced at over 500,000 yuan, he said.

In central China's Hunan Province, a developer speculating in burial plots has stirred public discontent.

The Wanfu Graveyard Development Co, based in Hengyang city of Hunan, has opened 11 subsidiaries in major cities in the province and pocketed 120 million yuan in revenue from 2004 to last year.

The company hires 1,600 sales agents in the province and offers a commission rate of 45 percent for each sale.

The company also allows its agents to buy the burial plots and resell them at double or triple the price. Twenty percent of the profits the sales personnel gained go to the company.

The company and its subsidiaries have sold 6,500 cemetery plots but only 296 of them are used for burial. The majority remain unused due to the sky-high price.

In one of the cemeteries the company developed in Hengyang, a grave less than 10 square meters is sold at about 60,000 yuan and the most extravagant one costs as much as 250,000 yuan.

"The speculators have pushed grave prices beyond the cost of a downtown house. It's illegal and unethical. They have no respect for the deceased," said a Hengyang resident surnamed Gao.

Editor: Yan