The overall prosperity index of China's real estate sector reached 102.19 points in March, 0.61 points lower than in February and 3.33 points lower than a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.

The monthly report of NBS on the real estate prosperity index shows that five out of six sub-indices dropped, including the total investment in real estate, financing of developers, total land acreage used in real estate development, floor space of housing left idle, and floor space of housing completed.

Only the sub-index on housing price reached had a slight rise in March to reach 111.2 points in March, up 0.89 points and 8.26 points on a monthly and yearly basis, respectively.

Statistics shows that in the first quarter of this year, housing prices rose by 12.5 percent on a year-on-year basis. The growth rate is 5.8 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

In the January-March period, China invested a total of 232.4 billion yuan in the real estate sector, up 26.7 percent over last year's same period, and the growth rate was 14.4 percentage points lower than a year earlier.

By the end of March, there were 92.2 million square meters of housing being left idle, up 5.5 percent on a year-on-year basis.

(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2005)