China’s fixed-asset investment growth slows

China’s urban fixed-asset investment grew 17.9% year on year in the first two months of 2014, down from the 21.2% growth registered in the same period of last year, official data showed. The growth rate was 1.7 percentage points lower than the full-year pace of 2013, as China’s economy still faces downward pressure, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) unveiled on Thursday. Urban fixed-asset investment amounted to 3.03 trillion yuan about (494.13 billion US dollars) during January and February, with the growth pace in February up 1.33 percentage points on a month-to-month basis, according to China’s (Xinhua) News Agency. Investment in the primary sector rose 20.9% year on year to 40.6 billion yuan in the Jan.-Feb. period, while investment in the secondary sector expanded to 1.17 trillion yuan, up 13.7% year on year. In tertiary industry, investment increased to 1.82 trillion yuan, up 20.8% from the same period last year, the data showed. Investment in China’s central areas grew by 20.6% year on year, followed by 20% in the country’s western parts and 16.5% in the east. Investment from enterprises in the Chinese mainland jumped 19.2% year on year, while the growth rate of investment from foreign companies stood at 5.2%. In the Jan.-Feb. period, fixed-asset investment from the private sector, accounting for 63.1% of total fixed-asset investment nationwide, grew 21.5% year on year to 1.91 trillion yuan. The growth pace was 3.1 percentage points lower than that of the same period last year.