Of the 3.4 billion euros (US$3.75 billion) that foreigners paid to buy real estate in Portugal last year, Chinese paid about 5 percent, Xinhua reports.

The Chinese government-run news agency, citing official data from the Statistics Institute of Portugal, says French buyers paid about 20 percent, Britons paid 16.9 percent and Brazilians paid 8.3 percent.

The report says foreigners bought almost 20,000 units in Portugal last year.

In Lisbon alone, foreigners paid over 1.3 billion euros to buy over 4,000 units, the report says.

Four years before, Chinese paid about 30 percent of the sum foreigners paid to buy real estate in Portugal, Xinhua says.