BEIJING: China’s fixed-asset investment grew 10.9 percent year on year to 33.9 trillion yuan (5.32 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first eight months, official data showed.
Growth retreated from the 11.2 percent registered in the first seven months, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Sunday.
Wang Baobin, an NBS statistician, attributed the month-on-month decrease to slumping investment growth in the property and manufacturing sectors.
Despite the decrease in growth rate, the industrial structure has improved, Wang said.
Investment in high energy consumption manufacturing rose only 2.1 percent year on year in the first eight months, about 6.8 percentage points lower than the growth rate for investment in the overall manufacturing sector, Wang said.
More money has been flowing to high-tech sectors. Investment in high-tech sectors totaled 1.96 trillion yuan in the first eight months, up 16 percent year on year, and the growth rate was 5.1 percentage points higher than the overall investment growth rate, Wang said.
The calculation does not include fixed-asset investment by farmers. It includes projects with investment of at least 5 million yuan, as well as all property development projects.
Fixed-asset investment in the tertiary industry increased 11.9 percent from a year ago, while that in infrastructure jumped 18.4 percent. Agricultural investment was up 28.5 percent to reach 938.9 billion yuan.
