China's home prices rise 2.5% in January

[BEIJING] China's home prices rose 2.5 per cent in January, higher than the previous month's reading of 1.6 per cent, an official survey showed on Friday, marking the fourth consecutive month of year-on-year gains.

Compared with a month earlier, home prices in January rose 0.4 per cent, up from December's 0.3 per cent, according to Reuters calculations based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Reuters started its weighted China home price index in January 2011 when the NBS stopped providing nationwide data, only giving home price changes in each of 70 major cities.

China's housing market, which accounts for around 15 per cent of the economy, began to stabilise last year, helped by a slew of government measures.

Still, the recovery remains uneven across the country as small cities still face huge inventories of unsold homes, discouraging new investment and construction.

REUTERS