China housing sales rise

China’s housing sales in the first five months of the year continued to rise, though at a slower rate after some of the larger cities started to tighten property measures to cool prices. Housing sales rose 53.4% from a year earlier to 3.18 trillion yuan ($482.5 billion) during the January-to-May period, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics this week. In the first four months of this year, housing sales rose 61.4%. In terms of floor area, housing sales increased 34.2% to 428.7 million square meters in the first five months of the year. In May alone, housing sales rose 32.9% on-year by value, slower than the 63.5% jump recorded in April, calculations by The Wall Street Journal showed.