China's real estate investment soared by 24.3 percent in the first three quarters to 1.3 trillion yuan (US$165 billion), the People's Bank of China, the central bank, said Tuesday in its third-quarter monetary policy report.

Investments on commodity residential housing shot up 29.5 percent between January and September. The growth is 8 percentage points higher over the same period of 2005.

Investments into office and retail properties increased by 15.8percent and 16.9 percent, respectively.

Thanks to the uncertainties amid the macro controls, the area of land acquired by property developers shrank by 3 percent in the first nine months to 241 million square meters, but finished space surged by 34 percent to 163 million square meters.

The sale of commodity housing rallied by 10.5 percent in the first nine months to 359 million square meters.

China had 121 million square meters of vacant commodity housing at the end of September, up 11.7 percent year on year. The area of vacant commodity residential housing increased by 9.7 percent to 66 million square meters.

Also at the end of September, commercial bank's outstanding loans to property businesses totaled 3.6 trillion yuan, up 24.35 percent year on year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2006)