China's fixed-asset investment up 20.3 pct in first eight months

China's urban fixed-asset investment grew 20.3 percent year on year in the first eight months of 2013, up 0.2 percentage points from the figure for the first seven months, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday.

Total investment stood at 26.26 trillion yuan (4.26 trillion U.S. dollars) in the January-August period, the NBS said.

Investment in primary industry hit 578.7 billion yuan, up 32 percent year on year. Investment in secondary industry totaled 11.32 trillion yuan, up 16.6 percent year on year, while investment in tertiary industry rose 23 percent year on year to 14.36 trillion yuan.

Investment in China's central regions grew 23.6 percent year on year. The next biggest increase was 22.9 percent in the west and then 18.9 percent in the east.

The property sector attracted 5.21 trillion yuan of investment, up 19.3 percent year on year, but the growth rate dipped 1.2 percentage points from that of the first seven months.

Investment in residential housing took 68.6 percent of total property investment, up 19.2 percent year on year to 3.57 trillion yuan.

Sales of commercial housing hiked 23.4 percent year on year to 708.42 million square meters, but the growth rate went down 2.4 percentage points from that of the first seven months.