Editor's note: There's no better time to raise questions than the NPC/CPPCC sessions, which bring together China's top policymakers. China Daily asks experts from different countries what they wish they could ask the members and delegates about topical issues. Reporters Gang Changxin, Wang Xiaotian and Wang Ying gather the answers.

Jonathan Woetzel, director, McKinsey&Company, Shanghai, and John-Paul Smith, global emerging market equity strategist with Deutsche Bank, would like to know how property prices in China will change.

Property prices in China will go down slightly this year amid persistent government curbs on the property market.

That is the consensus among deputies of the Nation People's Congress and members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, as well as industry analysts interviewed by China Daily during the two sessions.

There have been signs, however, that some restrictions on the property market are likely to be lifted, and some local media have reported that some cities recently lifted restrictions on second-home purchases.

But the interviewees say those moves are just irregularities on a regional level and do not reflect the stance of the central government.

The central government's thinking on the property market was reflected in Premier Wen Jiabao's government report on Monday, in which he said the government will "adamantly strengthen controls on the property market".

Amid the strict controls, China's property prices started to decline for the first time last year after years of sharp increases.

Yu Zhengsheng, Party chief of Shanghai, where real estate prices are among the highest in the nation, said he "doesn't see" that there will be any changes to city's property market policies this year.

Li Daokui, a member of the monetary policy committee of the People's Bank of China, said it is a "sure thing" that real estate prices will dip in 2012, but they won't "collapse", as some people have predicted.

"Property prices will be stable next year. Drastic swings in the sector are very harmful to the overall economy - the government won't let that happen," said Xiao Jian, an analyst with Southwest Securities Co.

This year, construction of 7 million affordable-housing units will begin, according to Wen's report. That will bring the total of affordable-housing units to more than 17 million. More affordable housing will drain demand for residential properties and lower prices, said Jia Kang, a member of the CPPCC National Committee and director of the Fiscal Science Research Center under the Ministry of Finance.

Wang Tao, an economist with UBS AG, predicts that private property sales will decline by 10 to 15 percent.

Xu Xiaolan, deputy director at the China Center for Information Industry and a member of the CPPCC, said "neither a big rise nor big fall is likely" in the property market in the short term, but there might be a slight price decline with minor fluctuations.

Shen Jingting contributed to this story.