Investment Picks up in First Four MonthsChina's Investment in fixed assets surged 16.5 percent year on year during January-April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Thursday.According NBS, investment in fixed assets totaled 423.6 billion yuan in the first four months of the year. The growth rate was 7.2 percentage points higher than in the same period of last year. In April, the fixed asset investment jumped 18.6 percent year on year to 167.6 billion yuan, growing 3.5 percentage points faster than in the first quarter. Figures from NBS showed that such antecedent indicators of investment like financing and newly started projects maintained a rapid growth in the period, implying further growth investment in the near future. The number of newly started projects increased by 627 over the same period last year to 15,382 during January-April. The total funding for fixed asset investment jumped 26.9 percent to 527.2 billion yuan. Investment in the western part of the country grew 26.2 percent to 67.2 billion yuan in the first four months of the year, leading the growth in eastern and central parts of the country. However, the NBS said the newly started projects were not enough to maintain the total scale of construction projects underway because most of the government-funded projects had been completed by the end of last year. During January to April, the total number of ongoing construction projects decreased by 2,687 from the same period of last year to 47,902. At the same time, the number of ongoing construction projects in the western part of the country decreased by 1,359 from one year ago. The total planned investment in construction projects in the western areas also dropped 5.4 percent during the period. This showed that the western areas and the country lack the strength to sustain a rapid growth of investment, according to NBS. |
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