CHINA Vanke Co, the country's largest residential property developer, said yesterday sales across the country dropped by more than one fifth last month.

The Shenzhen-based company, China's biggest publicly-listed developer, sold about 448,000 square meters of new homes for 4.37 billion yuan (US$642.6 million) in June, a year-on-year tumble of 38 percent and 22.8 percent, respectively, Vanke said in a statement filed to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

However, for the first half of this year, Vanke still reported business growth. Between January and June, the developer sold new homes totalling 2.658 million square meters for some 24.13 billion yuan, up 15 percent and 38.1 percent respectively from the same period a year earlier.

Vanke also said it has added two more projects in Suzhou and Shenyang in June, increasing the total number of new projects to 19 by the first half.