China's property investment up 12.7 pct in Jan.-July

Photo taken on Sept. 25, 2020 with a drone shows the downtown area of Longchang City, Neijiang, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Xinhua/Jiang Hongjing)

BEIJING, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- China's investment in property development rose 12.7 percent year on year in the first seven months of this year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Monday.

Compared with the 2019 level, property investment went up 16.5 percent, putting average January-July growth for 2020 and 2021 at 8 percent.

Investment in residential buildings gained 14.9 percent year on year during the seven-month period, the NBS data showed.

Commercial housing sales surged 21.5 percent year on year in terms of floor area to nearly 1.02 billion square meters. In terms of value, commercial housing sales went up 30.7 percent.

The property development climate index compiled by the NBS last month came in at 100.98 points.

China continued to see a generally stable housing market in July, with increases in home prices in 70 major cities slowing down, separate NBS data showed.

New home prices in four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou -- rose 0.4 percent month on month in July, 0.3 percentage points slower than that seen in June.