Prices of new homes across China’s biggest cities fell in September, the first month-on-month decline since April 2015 and a sign that sustained weakness across the country’s real estate industry was feeding through into the property market.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed new home prices dropped in more than half of the 70 cities it surveyed compared with August. Goldman Sachs’ analysis of the figures found a 0.5 per cent decline in prices on an annualised basis after including seasonal adjustments.

The data will add to pressure on policymakers, who have sought to cool the country’s vast

BHP maintained full-year production targets for every one of its sectors despite pressures created by labour shortages, the Anglo-Australian mining group said in its quarterly operational review on Tuesday.

The company said that pandemic-induced labour shortages had hit its iron ore operations in Western Australia, just days after rival Rio Tinto cut its yearly production forecasts for the same reasons.

BHP said iron ore production in Western Australia had fallen 6 per cent to 62m tonnes since the previous quarter, dragging its quarterly output of the steelmaking ingredient down 4 per cent year-on-year.

It said that the drop was mainly