Prices in 70 major cities were up 0.3 percent last month from November and were 6.4 percent 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 percent. The annualised surge peaked in April, when prices soared 12.8 percent, 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 percent in a bid to avoid a damaging price bubble.

The central bank has also raised interest rates twice since October and on Friday 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 percent to 1.04 billion square metres (11.23 billion square feet) 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.

"Property developers saw very brisk sales in 2010 and they have set sales growth targets of between 15 percent to 20 percent, which is quite high but most of them are very likely to meet," he said.

The finance ministry has approved a property tax plan in Chongqing in southwestern China, while Shanghai, the nation's financial hub, is likely to announce a property tax in the first quarter, state media reported.

Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng said over the weekend that the city was preparing for the "trial reform on property tax as required by the central government".

Authorities have yet to release details such as the timing, tax rate, or the type of homes on which the tax will be levied.

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