BEIJING, April 18 (Reuters) - Average new home prices in China's 70 major cities rose 0.6 percent in March from the previous month, higher than the February's reading of 0.3 percent, according to Reuters calculations based on an official survey on Tuesday.
Compared with a year ago, new home prices rose 11.3 percent, decelerating from February's 11.8 percent gain, according to data issued by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
In China's biggest cities, prices for new units in Beijing rose for the first time since October 2016 on a monthly basis. It rose 19 percent from a year ago.
In Shenzhen and Shanghai, prices for new units rose 9.1 percent and 16.8 percent, respectively, from a year earlier, but Shanghai's fell on a monthly pace as local governments' tightening measures continued to take the heat off the market. (Reporting by Yawen Chen and Elias Glenn; Editing by Sam Holmes)