国内英语新闻:China's urban fixed asset investment up 25.9 pct in first five months

BEIJING, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Urban fixed assets investment in China for the first five months rose 25.9 percent year on year to 6.74 trillion yuan (986.76 billion U.S. dollars), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Friday.

The growth rate was 0.2 percentage points down from that for the first four months, according to figures released by the NBS.

In the first five months, central government project investment was 540 billion yuan, up 14.1 percent year on year; investment by local governments soared 27 percent to 6.2 trillion yuan.

Investment in railways construction and transportation climbed 20.4 percent to 161.1 billion yuan during the same period.

The government is reportedly planning to spend 700 billion yuan on high-speed railway construction this year.

Total investment in the primary sector (including farming, fishing and forestry) expanded 16.1 percent from a year earlier.

The industrial sector saw investment up 22.4 percent and investment in the tertiary sector, which covers commerce, finance and services, was up 28.8 percent.

Property market investment grew 38.2 percent to 1.39 trillion yuan in the first five months, 2 percentage points higher than the figure for the first four months, according to NBS data.