In 70 major Chinese cities, housing prices remained stable in December 2019, as regulators continued to contain speculation.

New home prices in four first-tier cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen—increased 0.2 percent in the month, 0.4 percentage point lower than the previous month, while the prices of resold houses edged up 0.4 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in an online statement.

The real estate market in smaller cities also showed signs of stabilizing as the 31 second-tier and 35 third-tier cities monitored had growth rates of 0.3 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.

The prices of resold houses in second-tier cities increased slightly by 0.1 percent in December 2019, while those in third-tier cities registered a 0.2-percent growth.

NBS chief statistician Kong Peng attributed the property market's stable development to the Central Government's continued efforts to stabilize land and home prices.

The number of cities that saw declining housing prices in 2019 exceeded that in the same period in 2018, according to a report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The Chinese Government upholds the principle of "housing is for living in, not for speculation" to ensure the healthy development of the property market. In 2019, regulatory efforts intensified as local authorities introduced a new round of measures tailored to local conditions.

In addition, some cities tightened the regulation of the property market, while others moderately relaxed the purchase restrictions and some rolled out preferential policies to lure and retain skilled workers.

The two-way targeted regulation of the property market protects the housing supply while curbing speculation, said Wu Jianbin, Executive Vice President of Yango Holdings Group, a property developer.

A total of 620 measures regarding housing price regulations were rolled out in 2019, up 38 percent from 2018, said Zhang Dawei, chief analyst with the real estate agency Centaline Property.

The Central Government has been working on maintaining the stability of real estate policies, completing the land regulation mechanism and making other efforts to advance the sound development of the sector.

The central bank also stressed continuous special operations in establishing a long-term management scheme for real estate finance.

The tone-setting Central Economic Work Conference held in December 2019 reiterated a long-term mechanism to maintain the sound and healthy development of the real estate market, and also to guarantee housing for low-income urban families and further develop rental housing.

This is an edited version of the article published by Xinhua News Agency

Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo

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