China's fixed-asset investment up 5.5% in first eight months

BEIJING - China's fixed-asset investment (FAI) grew 5.5 percent year-on-year in the first eight months of 2019, 0.2 percentage points lower than the first seven months, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.

Compared with the same period of last year, the growth was up 0.2 percentage points.

The FAI amounted to 40.06 trillion yuan ($5.67 trillion) in the January to August period, NBS data showed.

Private-sector investment increased 4.9 percent to 23.7 trillion yuan, 0.5 percentage points lower than that in the first seven months.

FAI includes capital spent on infrastructure, property, machinery and other physical assets.

From January to August, investment in the primary sector of the economy went down 3.4 percent year-on-year, while that in the secondary sector rose 2.1 percent.

In the secondary sector, industrial investment climbed 3.3 percent year-on-year during the period, 0.5 percentage points lower than that in the first seven months.

Investment in the tertiary sector rose 7.3 percent year-on-year to 25.78 trillion yuan in the first eight months. In this sector, investment in infrastructure climbed 4.2 percent year-on-year during the period.