China's fixed-asset investment up 4.2 pct in first four months

BEIJING, May 17 (Xinhua) -- China's fixed-asset investment has maintained steady growth in the first four months of 2024, buoyed by government policies designed to expand effective investment.

Fixed-asset investment rose 4.2 percent year on year to 14.34 trillion yuan (about 2.02 trillion U.S. dollars) during the January-April period, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Friday.

Investment in infrastructure construction rose by 6 percent from a year ago, and manufacturing investment increased by 9.7 percent, the NBS said.

Boosted by government policies, investment in large-scale equipment renewals registered relatively fast expansion. During the first four months of 2024, investment in equipment and instruments rose by 17.2 percent compared with a year earlier -- 13 percentage points higher than the overall investment growth pace.

Investment in property development, however, fell by 9.8 percent year on year during the January-April period.

Excluding property development investment, the country's fixed-asset investment level climbed by 8.9 percent during the first four months.

April's data indicated that the country's real estate market was still in a state of adjustment, NBS spokesperson Liu Aihua told a press conference.

She added that China will work to speed up the fostering of a new development model for real estate and promote the high-quality development of this sector.

Investment in high-tech industries posted robust growth in the first four months of 2024, increasing by 11.1 percent from the previous year. A closer look at this growth revealed that investment in high-tech manufacturing and services had expanded by 9.7 percent and 14.5 percent, respectively.