China's fixed-asset investment down 5.7 pct in first six months

 China's fixed-asset investment dropped 5.7 percent year on year in the first six months of 2026, official data showed Wednesday.

The investment totaled nearly 22.64 trillion yuan (about 3.33 trillion U.S. dollars) during the period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.

Excluding the property sector, the country's fixed-asset investment went down 2.7 percent in the first six months.

By sector, investment in intellectual property products grew 9.4 percent year on year, 1.5 percentage points faster than in the first quarter of this year.

Infrastructure investment declined 2.4 percent from a year earlier, while manufacturing investment slipped 1.2 percent, according to the NBS.

In the first half of the year, investment in high-tech industries rose 4.6 percent year on year. A sector-by-sector breakdown showed that investment in the manufacture of aircraft, spacecraft and related equipment surged 23.3 percent, while investment in computer and office equipment manufacturing increased 8.1 percent. Investment in the information services sector climbed 15.5 percent.

In June alone, China's fixed-asset investment edged down 0.37 percent from the previous month, NBS data showed.

Mao Shengyong, deputy head of the NBS, said investment in the first half of 2026 played a key role in fostering new quality productive forces, boosting technological innovation, speeding up industrial upgrading, and improving people's livelihoods.

In particular, regions across the country have continued to step up investment in emerging industries, with spending in areas such as new energy, artificial intelligence and integrated circuits posting robust growth, he said.

"Looking ahead, there is strong potential to tap in expanding effective investment," he said, adding that robust demand is being driven by the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, as well as the growth of emerging industries and industries of the future.

Mao also pointed to elderly and childcare services, grassroots health care, the expansion of high-quality education, and rural revitalization as areas with enormous investment potential yet to be fully unlocked. ■