China's property investment down 3.3% in first 4 months

China's investment in property development went down 3.3 percent year on year in the first four months of this year, narrowing from the 7.7-percent decline in the first quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday.

Total property investment during the reporting period hit 3.31 trillion yuan (US$466 billion), the NBS said.

The investment in residential buildings went down 2.8 percent year on year to 2.42 trillion yuan in January-April, 4.4 percentage points lower than the decline in the first quarter.

Commercial housing sales in terms of floor area totaled 339.73 million square meters in the first four months, down 19.3 percent year on year, 7 percentage points lower than the January-March decline.

In terms of value, commercial housing sales fell 18.6 percent to 3.19 trillion yuan in the four-month period, narrowing by 6.1 percentage points compared with the decrease in the first quarter.

The property development climate index compiled by the NBS went up slightly by 0.67 points from March to 98.86 points in April.