China's fixed-asset investment growth cools

China's urban fixed-asset investment expanded 20.2 percent year on year in the Jan.-Sept. period, easing from the 20.3-percent growth of the first eight months and 20.5 percent in Jan.-Sept. 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on Friday.

In September, urban fixed-asset investment grew 1.28 percent from a month ago, bringing the total in the first nine months to 30.92 trillion yuan (5.04 trillion U.S. dollars), the NBS data showed.

From January to September, investment from the private sector, which accounted for 63.6 percent of total fixed-asset investment, grew 23.3 percent year on year to 19.66 trillion yuan.

Investment in primary industry hit 679.9 billion yuan, up 31.1 percent year on year, while investment in secondary industry amounted to 13.26 trillion yuan, up 17.1 percent year on year. Investment in tertiary industry expanded 22.3 percent year on year to 16.98 trillion yuan.

Investment in China's central regions grew by 23.4 percent year on year, followed by 23 percent in the west and 18.8 percent in the east.

NBS also said the property sector attracted 6.11 trillion yuan in investment in the first three quarters, up 19.7 percent year on year. The growth rate increased 0.4 percentage points from that of the first eight months.

Residential housing investment accounted for 68.7 percent of the total property investment, up 19.5 percent year on year to 4.20 trillion yuan.

Sales of commodity housing surged 33.9 percent year on year to 5.40 trillion yuan, but the growth rate dipped 9.3 percentage points from the rate registered in the first half of the year.

Friday's data also showed China's economic growth accelerated to 7.8 percent in the third quarter, in line with market expectations and well above the government's full-year target of 7.5 percent.