The average price of new housing units rose 5.5 percent in August compared with a year earlier, down from 5.8 percent in July, the China Daily said, citing government data.

"The central government's new housing policies, adopted in May, may be working, albeit slowly," the newspaper said, citing unnamed industry observers.

The housing figures, published by the National Development and Reform Commission, the nation's top planner, and the National Bureau of Statistics, were based on data compiled in 70 major Chinese cities.

The release of the figures coincided with the publication of a central bank survey of 20,000 urban customers, showing "a continuous decline in enthusiasm in housing purchases," the newspaper said.

China has worked hard to cool the property market, hoping to prevent a potentially devastating speculative bubble.

It has increased the down-payment for large new apartments to 30 percent of the unit price from 20 percent and has imposed a transaction tax on owners who resell their units within five years of purchase, up from two years before.

But no matter what the government does, it cannot escape the fact that there is huge pent-up demand for housing.

In the years from 1949 to 1989, China's housing supply increased just 40 percent, whereas the population more than doubled from 400 million to one billion, the China Daily said.

The country is still in bad need of affordable housing for lower-income people, Yan Jinming, a professor of land management at Beijing's People's University, told the newspaper.

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