China's property price growth continued to slow down in November, according to statistics released by the country's top economic planner on Tuesday.

Property prices in 70 major Chinese cities rose 0.2 percent from a year earlier, or 1.4 percentage points lower than October, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said.

The growth rate was the lowest since the NDRC started to publish the figure in July, 2005.

The measurement, jointly compiled by the NDRC and the National Bureau of Statistics, continued to decline this year. It fell from 11.3 percent in January to 0.2 percent last month.

As recently as April, property prices had been rising at a double-digit rate on an annual basis, according to the NDRC.

Last month new home prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities increased 0.2 percent year-on-year, 1.6 percentage points lower than in October.

Housing for low-income earners in major cities was priced 0.6 percent higher than the same month last year.

Property prices in 43 cities eased in November, with some cities recording sharp declines.

New home prices in Shenzhen, Nanjing and Xiamen dropped 2.4 percent, 2.2 percent and 2.9 percent in November, compared with October.

(Xinhua News Agency December 10, 2008)