China_Economy_Construction
Migrant construction workers watch an open air movie near their dormitories after a shift at a residential construction site in Shanghai on July 15, 2013. Reuters/Aly Song

Average new housing prices across 70 cities in China rose 9.6 percent in October, the tenth straight monthly rise on an annual basis, data released on Monday by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics showed.

The rise in October is up from a yearly increase of 9.1 percent in September and comes despite efforts by the government to bring down real estate prices, which seem to be acting like a slow brake as seen from their impact on monthly data.

On a month-on-month basis, housing prices rose 0.7 percent in October, marginally slower than the monthly increase of 0.9 percent recorded in September.

“October’s narrowing monthly home price gain is a result of strengthened control policies in some cities,” Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician from the bureau, said after the release of the data, according to a South China Morning Post report.

Among all the cities surveyed, the highest increase was a 21.4 percent spike, on a yearly basis, and the sharpest drop was a 1.5 percent fall. Top gainers were Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing.

China