(Beijing) -- Sales of residential housing in Beijing and Shanghai dropped sharply in the past two months due to both the central and local government's latest measures to cool the property market.

According to the municipal statistics bureau on March 15, residential housing sales in Beijing for the January to February period declined 21.1 percent from the same period last year to 1.32 million square meters. At the same time, residential housing transactions in Shanghai fell 31.3 percent year-on-year to 1.9 million square meters.