China invested more in its service sector in the first ten months of this year in a bid to speed up economic growth and improve the people's living conditions, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Investment in real estate, public and consulting services from January to October surged 20.1 percent to 367.50 billion yuan ( about 44 billion US dollars).

At the same time, 32.32 billion yuan (about 3.9 billion US dollars) was channeled into commerce and food services, material supply, marketing and storage, up 3.1 percent on an annual basis.

China has also significantly increased input in the primary industry during the period, with investment amounting to 51.89 billion yuan (about 6.3 billion USdollars), a year-on-year rise of 43.8 percent.

The primary industry includes agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fisheries and water conservancy.

In the construction sector, total investment hit 12.70 billion yuan (about 1.5 billion US dollars), 30.4 percent more than that of the same 1998 period.

China has taken measures to step up infrastructure construction in a bid to stimulate the domestic market in the wake of the Asian financial crisis.