Home prices in most Chinese cities continued to drop in October despite easing restrictions, official data showed on November 18.

New housing prices in 69 of 70 major cities showed month-on-month drops in October, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

Only Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, avoided the trend, with prices remaining flat from the previous month.

This latest data marks the sixth consecutive monthly drop in the residential property market.

On an annual basis, house prices in 67 out of the 70 cities were lower from a year ago.

"The pace of decline was eased following mortgage policy adjustments and efforts to cut housing inventories," said Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician at the NBS.

"New measures are expected to push sales of inventories in case of a further price slump," said Kuang Xianming, Director of the Economic Research Center at the China Institute for Reform and Development.

Easing Burdens

With continued pressure on the Chinese economy, China's State Council pledged a list of measures to ease financing burdens for companies on November 19.

After a string of moves to tackle this problem was rolled out in July, high financing costs have eased in some regions but still remain a prominent bottleneck for businesses, said a statement released after an executive meeting of the State Council presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

The calculation of the loan-to-deposit ratio should be granted more flexibility for financial institutions to improve their capability to support small and micro businesses as well as farmers, the statement said.

China will speed up the growth of private banks and encourage financial institutions to provide multi-faceted financial services to companies through community and cellphone banks. The government also encourages Internet finance companies to provide standardized services to smaller businesses, farmers and the rural economy.

Performance assessment for Chinese commercial banks should also be improved to curb the tendency of preferring big projects and high loan interest rates.

China will also lower the threshold for small and innovative firms to get listed on the stock market, scrapping the requirement that only companies that register continuous years of profits are eligible to be listed.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland rose 1.3 percent in October year on year to $8.53 billion, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said on November 18.

The rate of growth was lower than the 1.9 percent growth in September, after a 14-percent slump in August.

For the first 10 months, the FDI, which excludes investment in the financial sector, totaled $95.9 billion, down 1.2 percent from the same period last year. The decline is less than the 1.4 percent fall registered in the first nine months and 1.8 percent drop posted for the first eight months.

Among the 10 major investors, FDI from South Korea increased 26.4 percent year on year in the first 10 months while that from Britain expanded 32.4 percent.

In contrast, investment from Japan plunged 42.9 percent and that from the United States 23.8 percent. European Union investment was down 16.2 percent.

MOFCOM spokesman Shen Danyang attributed the declines to restructuring of China's manufacturing industry that used to attract the majority of this kind of investment.

FDI into the manufacturing sector in the January-October period declined 15.1 percent year on year to $32.5 billion. The service sector attracted $53.1 billion, up 6.6 percent.