BEIJING, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Here are the highlights of China's business news from the past week:

-- FISCAL REVENUE

China's fiscal revenue fell by 14.5 percent year on year in the January-April period, extending the previous month's decline as the country continued to contain the COVID-19 epidemic while increasing tax relief to mitigate its impact on the economy.

The pace of decline quickened from a fall of 14.3 percent in the first quarter of the year and a 9.9 percent decrease in the first two months.

The country's fiscal revenue in the first four months of the year amounted to 6.21 trillion yuan (about 875.11 billion U.S. dollars), according to data released by the Ministry of Finance Monday.

-- HOME PRICES

China continued to see a generally stable housing market in April, with home prices in 70 major cities showing milder month-on-month increases, official data showed on Monday.

New home prices in four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou -- showed month-on-month growth of 0.2 percent in April, unchanged from a month earlier, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

The country's second-tier cities saw a month-on-month increase of 0.5 percent in new home prices, up 0.2 percentage points from the previous month, while third-tier cities witnessed a month-on-month rise of 0.6 percent in new home prices, compared with a 0.2-percent increase reported in March.

-- FOREX SETTLEMENT

China's commercial banks saw a net forex settlement surplus of 104.7 billion yuan in April, the country's forex regulator said on Friday.

Forex purchases by banks stood at 1.11 trillion yuan in April, while sales reached 1 trillion yuan, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed.

In particular, the amount of forex settlement and sales by banks for customers stood at 974.4 billion yuan and 889.5 billion yuan respectively, with a settlement surplus of 84.9 billion yuan.

The amount of foreign exchange settlement and sales for banks themselves stood at 137.1 billion yuan and 117.3 billion yuan respectively, with a settlement surplus of 19.8 billion yuan.