Sep. 7, 2011 (China Knowledge) -  China Vanke Co Ltd<000002><200002>, the largest publicly traded residential properties developer in the country, said yesterday that its property sales fell 12.6% from the same month of last year to RMB 10.48 billion in August this year, reflecting the first year-on-year decline this year.

The property sales in August rose 15.4% from July, said the company in a statement filed with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Last month, the developer sold 960,000 square meters of properties, 5% more than in the same period of 2010 and 22.8% more than in July.

The company attributed the decline in sales value to a decline in average sales price as about 80% of the properties sold last month were in second- and third-tier cities.

In the first eight months of this year, the company's contracted sales surged 47.8% year on year to RMB 84.57 billion, and sales area amounted to 7.33 million square meters, 50.4% more than in the corresponding period of last year.

The company in August added five projects in Beijing, Taiyuan of Shanxi Province, Hefei of Anhui Province and Xi'an of Shaanxi Province.