The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, said Wednesday that the growth of property developers' bank settlement accounts in China's hottest property markets has declined as the government's property market control measures have started to take effect.

Growth rates of property developers' bank settlement accounts fell significantly in the first quarter of the year in the municipalities of Beijing and Shanghai and provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu, the PBOC said in a quarterly report concerning the country's payment systems.

Month-on-month growth rates in these areas were lower than the industry's national average level of 4.1 percent for the fourth consecutive quarter, the report said.

However, the growth of bank settlement accounts opened by property developers in the central and western parts of China increased rapidly during the same period, with central China registering a 5.4-percent growth rate and western China recording growth of 4.5 percent, the report said.

By the end of March, the total number of bank settlement accounts in the country's property sector stood at 784,500, up 4.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010, the report said.

This increase was 0.2 percentage points higher than that of the fourth quarter of 2010, the report said.

The Chinese government has stressed its efforts to cool the runaway property market and adopted measures including raising borrowing costs for developers, restricting third-home purchases, requiring higher down payment and instituting trial property taxes in cities of Chongqing and Shanghai.