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China's urban fixed asset investment grew 20.6 percent year on year to 9.13 trillion yuan (147.29 billion U.S. dollars) in the first four months of 2013, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed on Monday.
The growth was 0.3 percentage point lower than the pace recorded in the first quarter, the NBS said in a statement.
Sun Wencun, a macroeconomic analyst with CITIC Securities, said the growth was mainly driven by infrastructure and property investment, while investment in the manufacturing sector remained weak in the first four months.
During this period, the real estate sector saw investment climb 21.1 percent year on year. The rise was 0.9 percentage point higher than the rate logged in the first three months of 2013.
Investment in the manufacturing sector rose 18.4 percent to 3.23 trillion yuan, 0.3 percentage point lower than the reading in the first three months.
NBS did not provide figures for infrastructure investment. But Sun said growth has been kept stable. A CITIC report showed that infrastructure investment will maintain a growth rate of 25 percent throughout the first half of the year.
Infrastructure, property and manufacturing investment together accounted for 80 percent of the country's total fixed asset investment, according to a report of Cinda Securities.
Experts believed the fixed-asset investment growth is not likely to gain strong momentum in the coming months
Peng Wensheng, chief economist at the China International Capital Corp. (CICC), said falling prices of industrial goods and surplus production capacity will lead producers to put off some investments.
China's producer price index (PPI), an index tracking changes in prices that producers charge for their output, fell 2.6 percent year on year in April.
The investment in the manufacturing sector is not likely to get back to the fast track until there is a turnaround in PPI and the problem with overcapacity is addressed, said Peng.
Sun said investment in the infrastructure and property sectors will remain stable. Property investment will maintain a 21 percent growth rate in the coming months, given an improvement in the number of newly-launched projects in April.
Sun said although the government has recently conducted tightening of the property sector, April figures showed that the real estate sector did not slow down. Investment in property developments will continue to support China's investment growth.
