Investment Grows Rapidly in First QuarterChina saw 12.4 percent growth of fixed asset investment in the first quarter of the year, official figures show.Deputy Commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Qiu Xiaohua said that fixed asset investment, totaling 387.8 billion yuan, was one of the driving forces behind an 8.1 percent growth of the economy in the period. According to figures NBS released Friday, state-owned enterprises, partially owned enterprises, enterprises with public share holdings and foreign-funded enterprises invested a total of 256 billion yuan in fixed assets during January-March, 15.1 percent more than one year ago. Collectively owned enterprises invested 57.5 billion yuan, increasing 14.1 percent over the same period last year. Private businesses invested 74.3 billion yuan, growing three percent year-on-year. Qiu said that taking into consideration people's spending on treasury bonds and government-run lotteries, the growth rate of private investment would be much higher than three percent. In the first quarter, investment in technological upgrading and real estate development led the growth trend by increasing 25.2 percent and 22.9 percent respectively. NBS figures showed that financing for fixed asset investment totaled 346.8 billion yuan in the first quarter, 90.8 billion yuan more than the amount of actual investment. Thanks to the government's policy of developing the western part of the country, investment in western China grew 23.4 percent year-on-year to 38.7 billion yuan in the period, exceeding the growth in eastern and central China by 6.2 percentage points and 16 percentage points respectively. In the first quarter, the country made a total of 131.9 billion yuan worth of investment in the construction of infrastructure, 9. 2 percent more than in the same period of last year. |
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