China's urban property prices climbed in August, but at a slower pace than at any time since the central government took measures in April to rein in the runaway market.

Real estate prices in 70 major cities on the Chinese mainland rose 9.3 percent last month, extending their year-on-year gain for the 15th consecutive month, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday on its website.

The figure continued a downward trend: Prices rose 12.8 percent in April, 12.4 percent in May, 11.4 percent in June and 10.3 percent in July. The April mark was the biggest year-on-year gain since July 2005, when the bureau doubled the number of cities it was tracking.

"The year-on-year price growth at a decelerated rate since May indicated that the country's tightening policies have been taking their effect to curb speculations to some extent," said Sky Xue, an analyst with China Real Estate Information Corp, a major real estate information, consulting and online services provider. "But on a month-on-month basis, prices still stayed very firm, mainly due to inadequate supply as well as continuously ample demand from both end-users and investors."

Across the country, prices of new and existing homes jumped 11.7 percent and 6.2 percent in August from a year earlier, compared to gains of 12.9 percent and 6.7 percent in July.

In Shanghai, they rose 6.3 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively.

In the first eight months of this year, property sales by area rose 6.7 percent nationwide to 527 million square meters, 3 percentage points lower than the growth in the first seven months, the bureau said.

Sales by value, meanwhile, jumped 12.6 percent to 2.64 trillion yuan (US$388 billion), 4.2 percentage points lower than the growth in the first seven months.

In August alone, sales of new real estate, by area, fell 10.1 percent from a year earlier to 68.86 million square meters. By value, August sales declined 8.6 percent to 353.3 billion yuan, according to the bureau.

Meanwhile, speculation is growing that the government will issue extra tightening measures.

In Shanghai, for instance, new home sales jumped to a four-month high of 730,000 square meters in August, a rise of 70 percent over July, while the average price of new homes rose nearly 10 percent from July to 21,156 yuan per square meter amid recuperating demand for mid to high-end houses, Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co said last week.

A report by The 21st Century Business Herald earlier this week said further rein-in policies are likely, citing an unidentified person close to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

The government launched a series of tightening measures in mid-April -- such as requirements for larger down payments -- to limit the risk of property bubbles.

(Shanghai Daily September 11, 2010)