BEIJING, March 15 (Reuters) - China's new home prices dropped for the eighth straight month in February, official data showed on Friday, despite recent measures to shore up the fragile property sector.

New home prices fell 0.3% month-on-month, in line with January's decline, according to Reuters calculations based on National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data.

Prices fell 1.4% from a year earlier, faster than the 0.7% drop in January and the biggest decline since January 2023.

China will improve home sales in a "forceful" and "orderly" way, the housing and development minister said this month. Beijing has been stepping up measures to arrest a prolonged property downturn, a major drag on the economy, but such support is yet to reinvigorate sales.

(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo. Editing by Sam Holmes.)