Property investment grows slower

Investment in real estate development continued to increase in the Chinese mainland in the first 10 months of this year, with area of land bought for property development declining, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday.

Between January and October, 2.39 trillion yuan (350.7 million U.S. dollars) was pumped into real estate development projects, a growth of 24.6 percent over the same period of last year. The growth rate was 1.9 percentage points lower than the January-September level.

Of the total input, 73.1 percent was invested in commercial housing projects, up 27.4 percent. The growth rate was 1.3 percentage points lower than the January-September level.

The first 10 months saw 2.48 billion square meters of real estate projects under construction, up 18.7 percent, and 250 million square meters of housing completed, up 7.6 percent.

Owing to lackluster on the real estate market, the area of land bought by property developers decreased 5.6 percent to 300 million square meters, and that of land developed down 2.5 percent to 190 million square meters.