BEIJING, Oct. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- China's total fixed assets investment was 5,706.1 billion yuan in the first nine months, up 26.1 percent year-on-year, Zheng Jingping, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, said here Thursday.

    The growth rate represented a 1.6 percentage points decline compared with the growth of a year earlier, said Zheng at a press conference.

    Investment in fixed assets in urban areas was 4,874.1 billion yuan, up 27.7 percent, or 2.2 percentage points drop from a year earlier.

    Of the total urban investments, real estate development rose 22.2 percent to 1,037.8 billion yuan. Its growth was 6.1 percentage points lower than that of the previous year.

    Investment in coal and oil production and in railway transport maintained rapid growth in the same period, said Zheng. Enditem