DALIAN AUTO SHOW: Visitors photograph a Pagani sports car worth 48 million yuan ($7.84 million) during the 2013 Dalian International Auto Show. The event, held from August 21 to 25 in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province, attracted over 1,200 cars from around the world (YAN PING)

Home Price Rise

Prices of both new and existing homes continued to rise in most Chinese cities in July, according to official data released on August 18.

Of a statistical pool of 70 major cities, 62 saw month-on-month new home price rises, down from 63 in June, the National Bureau of Statistics announced.

According to the bureau, 57 cities reported month-on-month price gains in existing and second-hand homes in July compared to 55 in June, lower than the 64 rises in May.

On a year-on-year basis, new home prices rose in 69 cities last month, the same as the June figure, while 67 reported higher year-on-year prices for existing homes in July, down from 68.

Overall, home prices have been rising in most cities due to higher demand and rising land prices, a senior statistician with the NBS said.

But the month-on-month growth rate narrowed in July and only 12 cities reported month-on-month new-home price growth above 1 percent in July, eight less than the figure in June.

Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing saw month-on-month new-home price growth rates narrow by a 0.8 percentage point, 0.3 percentage point and 0.2 percentage point respectively.

Railway Reforms

The Central Government on August 19 published detailed plans to innovate railway funding and speed up construction as China's new leadership is devoted to deepening reforms.

The State Council said in a statement that railway investment this year is likely to exceed the planned amount. Also, for this year and the following two, the Central Government will provide transitional subsidies for China Railway Corp., which was established in March to take over the enterprise functions of the now-defunct ministry of railways.

Railway construction should be accelerated in an attempt to exceed 2013 investment plans, while the building of railways and related infrastructure should be prioritized in western and less-developed areas, the statement said. The reform will also encourage private investment in railway construction.

Lower Deposit Rates

China's central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said on August 19 the economy will not post persistent slowdowns, indicating the bank is ready to fully liberalize the financial market by removing the ceiling on deposit rates.

Zhou said the central bank will continue to implement its "prudent" monetary policy and conduct structural fine tuning where needs be.

China's current growth rate, he said, is in line with the government's plans to transform the economy, which still has powerful endogenic growth potential and will not slow further.

In response to when the central bank will liberalize the rate on deposits, Zhou said the reform is underway as planned.