国内英语新闻:China's home prices rise 12.4% in May

BEIJING, May 10 (Xinhua) -- Home prices in 70 large and medium-sized Chinese cities rose by 12.4 percent year on year in May, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement Thursday.

The growth rate was 0.4 percentage points lower than that of April, as property sales in first-tier cities, including, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, contracted following a string of government measures to rein in price rises.

Second-hand homes prices posted a year-on-year increase of 9.2 percent in May, but fell 0.4 percent from April, said the NBS in the statement.

New home prices rose 15.1 percent year on year, down 0.3 percentage points from April.

In May, floor space sold stood at 67.77 million square meters, a decrease of 12.74 million square meters from April.

Floor space sold in the first five months climbed 22.5 percent from a year earlier to 302 million square meters. Growth in the first five months was down 10.3 percentage points compared with the January-April period.