China's urban fixed asset investment rose 20.9 percent year-on-year to 4.7865 trillion yuan (761.22 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of 2012, new official statistics have shown.

The growth rate was down 2.9 percentage points from the figure registered for the whole year of 2011, according to a release from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday.

The nominal figure pulled back 0.6 percentage points from that in the first two months, but the real growth rate after adjusting for inflation was higher, said NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun.

During the January-March period, investment in the primary industry jumped 35.8 percent to reach 88.6 billion yuan.

Investment in the secondary industry totaled 212.7 billion yuan, up 24.6 percent, while that in the tertiary industry expanded 17.6 percent to 1.7244 trillion yuan.

Investment in the country's central regions grew fastest, by 27.1 percent, followed by 26.9 percent in the west and 18.9 percent in the more developed east.

The data also showed investment in the central government's projects contracted by 9.7 percent from a year earlier, while that of local governments expanded by 23.1 percent.

Investments in railway projects continued to be the biggest negative contributor of the overall growth, plunging 41.8 percent to 53 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, investment in property development rose 23.5 percent to 1.0927 trillion yuan, down 10.6 percentage points from the same period last year and 4.4 percentage points from the full-year figure in 2011.

The sales volume of residential houses dipped 14.6 percent year-on-year to 867.2 billion yuan as the government's tightening policies in the sector continued to bite.

The area of land purchased by developers dropped 3.9 percent year-on-year to 78.59 million square meters in the first quarter, the NBS said.

Investment and exports have been major growth drivers for China, but the the world's second largest economy is keen to steer its growth model more toward domestic consumption to avoid over-reliance on the two areas.

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