Land price in 35 major cities increased 0.36 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, a 2.49 percent rise over the previous quarter, according to data released Tuesday.

The average price amounted to 3, 345 yuan ($489.93) per square meter, the Ministry of Land and Resources' report said.

The land prices for commercial use and residential use are 5341 yuan ($782.28) and 4739 yuan ($694.11) per square meter, up 1.52 percent and 1.93 percent respectively year-on-year.

The land price for industrial use fell to 739 yuan ($108.24) per square meter, down 2.14 percent from the third quarter last year, the data said.

"The increase in land prices for residential use was caused by soaring home prices, while the fall in the price of land for industrial use has resulted from preferential government policies," Zhao Song, director of China Land Surveying and Planning, the agency in charge of calculating of the data, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"Land prices all over the country are basically at reasonable levels, except in some cities," she said, "and residential land prices are not rising as fast as home prices."

Some developers bought land at record high prices in the past few months, but analysts said this was an abnormal phenomenon because the real economy of the country has not recovered that fast.

"Local governments benefit from rising land prices because it increases their revenues," Liu Weixin, deputy director of the Institute of Modern Urban-Rural Development Planning, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"Property developers are buying land at high prices with the hope that they will be able to sell buildings at inflated rates, consequently driving up prices of homes in the area," Liu explained.