Hong Kong property transactions fell 14 percent month over month in October and 53 percent year over year, according to data from the city’s Land Registry. The total amount of transactions came in at 5,675, of which 4,643 transactions were in the residential property sector. Residential property transactions declined 3.7 percent month over month and 51 percent year over year. Property prices in Hong Kong have begun to decline since July. But as of August, prices remained 12 percent higher than they were the start of the year.

China’s southern city of Zhuhai has put a price cap on real estate sales, days after the country’s Premier Wen Jiabao urged local governments to help the central government control rising property prices. The Zhuhai government will cap transactions at RMB11,285 (USD1,775) per square meter, a level that real estate executives said was three times below the market rate. Zhuhai is an industrial city adjacent to the prosperous special administrative region and gambling center of Macau. The price caps are largely seen as symbolic, as numerous loopholes in the law may lessen its impact on the Zhuhai property markets. Rising real estate prices have become a symbol of the widening gap between rich and poor in the world’s most populous country.

Russia and Georgia have reached a deal that may pave the way for Russia’s entrance in the World Trade Organization (WTO), officials said. Russia has spent 18 years attempting to join the WTO, and it is the largest economy outside the 153-nation trading bloc. In past years the country of Georgia, which fought a brief war with Russia in 2008, has emerged as the final hurdle to Russia’s WTO accession. Last week, Russia and Georgia agreed to a compromise that would monitor trade in disputed regions in the Caucasus Mountains. The World Bank said that Russia’s entry to the WTO could add 3 percent to the country’s economic growth in the medium term and 11 percent to GDP in the long term. A final decision on Moscow’s bid should be made by Dec. 15.

Taiwan’s economy grew at its slowest pace in two years as an uncertain global economy weighed heavily on exports. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 3.37 percent year over year in the third quarter, compared to a gain of 5.02 percent in the second quarter. In the period from July to September, the economy contracted by 0.28 percent on a quarterly basis. Taiwan’s government lowered its GDP growth forecast for 2011 to 4.56 percent from 4.81 percent. The forecast for export growth was reduced to 13.18 percent from 15.24 percent this year.