Housing prices rise accelerates in major cities

Home prices kept rising at quicker pace in major Chinese cities, underscoring the the government's cooling measures remain imperative, official data showed Friday.

Of a statistical pool of 70 major Chinese cities recorded by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 53 cities saw home prices increase within 2.2 percent in January from a month earlier. In December, the growth margin is no more than 1.2 percent.

On a year-on-year basis, 53 cities registered rising prices with growth rate drastically up to 4.7 percent, compared with 2.4 percent that recorded in December, NBS said in a statement on its website.