China’s urban fixed asset investment increased by 33.6 per cent in the first six months of this year to Rmb9,132bn, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The growth rate was 7.2 percentage points higher than the same period of last year, said the bureau. The increase in June alone was 35.3 per cent.

Zhang Hanya, director of the Research Institute of Investment under the National Development and Reform and Commission, said that the surge in fixed-asset investment was mainly a result of increased government spending designed to boost the economy and counteract falling exports. Exports declined 21.8 per cent in the first six months of 2009 from a year earlier because of a slump in overseas demand.