Property prices in China’s major cities posted their fourth straight month-on-month rise in December and sales picked up pace, despite official efforts to cool the market.

Prices in 70 major cities were up 0.3 per cent last month from November and were 6.4 per cent higher than a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.

The month-on-month gain in November was also 0.3 per cent. The annualised surge peaked in April, when prices soared 12.8 per cent, but growth has slowed since then.

Prices have nevertheless remained stubbornly high, despite a range of government measures such as hiking minimum down payments on property transactions to at least 30 per cent in a bid to avoid a damaging price bubble.

The central bank has also raised interest rates twice since October and last Friday week it increased the amount of money banks must keep in reserve in a bid to curb lending – following six such moves last year.

Sales in terms of floor space rose 10.1 per cent to 1.04 billion square metres in 2010, the statement said, without specifying the monthly figure for December.

However, the full-year growth was 0.3 percentage points higher than the increase for the first 11 months, the statistics bureau said, indicating that some buyers were snapping up homes before property taxes take effect.

Analysts have blamed the government’s massive stimulus measures launched to combat the financial crisis in late 2008 for flooding the market with liquidity that has led to rising property prices and inflation.

Property prices are defying the government’s efforts to cool the market and sales are likely to remain robust on strong demand and more supplies, Toni Ho, Hong Kong-based property analyst with Bocom International told AFP.

“Real estate prices slump only when there is a significant economic or political event that triggers panic selling and the chance of that is seemingly very slim,” Ho said.