Chinese authorities are considering scrapping controls on investment in the country's property market by foreign buyers, the Beijing-based China Times reported on Thursday, citing unidentified sources. The report suggests that Premier Li Keqiang might have meant his response to a housing market-related question raised by a foreign journalist at the conclusion of the annual session of the parliamentary body in mid-March.

"You are welcome to buy a house in China," Li said.

Actually, the country has already moved to relax controls on foreign investment in the real estate sector. The announcement of a revised foreign investment catalogue in March partially opened the property sector to foreign investors. 

But home purchases by overseas investors are still subject to various restraints. The Thursday report, if confirmed, would substantially remove those restraints, potentially welcoming more investment into the property market.

The report came on the same day when the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced housing prices for 70 major cities in May, with signs of a recovery seen mainly in first-tier cities.

Twenty cities saw a rise in new home prices on a monthly basis in May, an increase from 18 cities in April, the NBS statistics said.

Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong Province saw an especially impressive 6.7 percent jump in new home prices in May from April, leading the rise seen among first-tier cities in the country.

So, could the potential lifting of curbs on home purchases by overseas investors add fuel to this apparent recovery in the real estate market? The effect is likely to be limited.

Recent signs of a recovery in both transaction volumes and prices seen in the biggest cities is largely down to a flurry of easing policies that have been announced by both the central and local governments to prop up the property sector, such as lower down payment requirements and lower mortgage rates.

But it has not led to an increase in investment by property developers, and until that happens there will not be an overall recovery in the real estate market.

Recent data may have been better for first-tier cities, but smaller cities have seen a continuing decline in home prices, indicating that the property sector on the whole remains weak.

Against this backdrop, there is a possibility that overseas investors will feel dubious about making any moves in China's real estate market.

Also noteworthy is that some of the pickup seen in recent months in some cities, Shenzhen in particular, is believed to have been closely related to the bull run in the domestic stock market, which in turn has fuelled home buying.

However, there have been fluctuations in the stock market recently, with the Shanghai Composite Index closing down nearly 4 percent on Thursday.

This will inevitably reduce the appetite of many investors to put their gains from the stock market into new home purchases.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn