(Yicai Global) May 15 -- The growth of China's commercial housing sales area and sales volume from January to April declined to the lowest level in three years, showed data released by China's National Bureau of Statistics today. Higher borrowing costs and restrictions on buyers are believed to play a role in the country's property investment.

The commercial housing sales area totaled 422 million square meters from January to April, increasing by 1.3 percent year-on-year, with the growth rate declining 2.3 percentage points compared with that from January to March. The commercial housing sales volume reached CNY3.62 trillion (USD569 billion), an increase of 9 percent and its growth rate dropped by 1.4 percentage points, data showed.

A booming property market since 2016 has led the government to introduce a series of measures to curb the demand, including higher borrowing costs. 

NBS publishes the accumulated data from the beginning of the year to the current month from January and February each year, without disclosing the monthly data of commercial housing sales area and volume. Judging from the previous statistics, the growth of China's commercial housing sales area and sales volume from January to April has hit a new low since June 2015.

The real estate development investment in China totaled about CNY 3 trillion in the first four months of this year with a nominal year-on-year increase of 10.3 percent, and the growth rate fell 0.1 percentage points compared with that from January to March.

The investment growth rate of 10.3 percent still shows a trend of high growth, with the current investment data above 10 percent in two consecutive months, which is also the first time in 38 consecutive months since March 2015.

The area of commercial housing for sale was 567 million square meters as of the end of April, decreasing 6.42 million square meters since end-March.

Editor: Mevlut Katik