Analysts have told how Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's recent remarks on real estate market regulation have soothed worries over an easing of property pricing curbs and indicated further tightening measures are likely if housing prices rebound steeply.

Wen, China's top economic official, said on Saturday that the government will resolutely implement real estate market regulation and make it a long-term task to curb speculation in this sector.

"The government is determined to bring housing prices down to reasonable levels. More tightening measures will likely come out if property prices rise steeply nationwide in the third quarter," said Hu Jinghui, deputy president of 5i5j.com, a major real estate service company in China.

Hu said the country will adjust its tightening measures in accordance with market changes, and make them better targeted in order to meet "reasonable housing needs" and dampen speculative demand.

On a visit to Changzhou, east China's Jiangsu province, Wen said policies to restrict home purchases, limit speculation and increase property taxes will stay in place. He stressed that the central government forbids local authorities to relax the controls, which have so far included restrictions on second-home purchases, higher down payments and the introduction of property taxes.

He also called for faster construction of affordable housing, saying that local authorities should facilitate the approval of land and improve the quality of construction by inviting all types of investors to participate.

Wen's remarks came after the central bank announced its second rate cut in a month to buoy growth and the real estate market has showing signs of recovery.

In June, many first- and second-tier cities saw new home sales volumes touch a 17-month high and prices climb steadily.

Data from the China Index Academy showed the average home price in 100 major cities edged up 0.05 percent in June from a month ago, ending a nine-month decline, raising fears of a new price surge.

Analysts, however, have worried that a further property clampdown may weigh down China's economy, which has already been slowing due to external demand and lackluster domestic consumption.

China's manufacturing sector grew at its slowest pace in seven months in June, with the purchasing managers index (PMI) for the sector easing further to 50.2 percent.

Small companies' PMI reading stayed below the boom-and-bust line of 50 percent for the third consecutive month in June, indicating that the world's second-largest economy continued to splutter.

In the first five months of the year, investment in real estate, which directly accounts for about 13 percent of gross domestic product, increased at a slower pace than investment in fixed-assets.

"That means the real estate sector has been holding the economy back," observed Yang Hongxu, a senior analyst with the Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institute.

The central government has given higher priority to stabilizing growth than to controlling inflation, as consumer prices posted several consecutive months of declines.

Lu Ming, a researcher at the Shanghai-based Fudan University, said that amid such an environment of slowing growth, the main strategy may not further crack down on the property market, but increase the supply of affordable housing.

In the first five months of 2012, work started on 4.7 million units of subsidized housing and 2.6 million units were basically completed.

"The government needs to study how to make affordable housing construction a consumption-boosting measure, such as where and how many affordable housing should be built," Lu noted.

China has vowed to build 36 million affordable housing units during the 2011-2015 period in a bid to meet the demands of low-income families and cool the property market.