China's Fixed Asset Investment Up in JulyChina's investment in fixed assets grew by 18.4 percent on a year-on-year basis in the first seven months of this year, totaling 1,111.1 billion yuan.According to the figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Thursday, the growth rate for January-July was 0. 5 percentage points higher than that in the first six months of this year. In July, the fixed assets investment grew 20.4 percent. NBS said the increase of investment in real estate development was the major force behind the fixed asset investment growth. During January to July, the total investment in real estates reached 265.2 billion yuan, growing 31.6 percent over the same period of last year. The growth rate was 2.4 percentage points higher than in the first half of this year. The NBS attributed the rapid growth of real estate investment to four factors, including growing residential demands driven by housing reform and improved finance, rapidly growing investment in office and commercial buildings before China's accession to WTO, land auctions in some areas of China and increasing supply of residential buildings priced for low- and medium-income people. In the same time, the western areas of China continued to lead other parts of the country in terms of investment growth. During January-July, fixed asset investment in the western areas amounted to 185.7 billion yuan, increasing 26.8 percent year-on-year. NBS said that funding for fixed asset investment was more sufficient in July than in the previous months. As the government channeled money from issuing treasury bonds to major construction projects, funds available for fixed asset investment reached 1212. 5 billion yuan in the first seven months of the year, increasing 26 percent over the corresponding period of last year. |
| People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ |