Foreign investors acquired 4.5 billion U.S. dollars worth of property in China in the first quarter, a surge of 32 percent over the figure for entire 2005, international property adviser Debenham Tie Leung (DTZ) said in Beijing on Thursday.

Nicholas Cho, director of DTZ investment department, told Xinhua that the impressive growth is partly due to the fact that there was a huge increase in foreign investors in the country's property market in 2005.

As major transactions take quite a long time, many of them were only inked in the first quarter of this year, said Cho.

According to figures released by Chinese authorities, foreigners acquired 3.4 billion U.S. dollars worth of property in China in 2005. They also invested 5.4 billion dollars in the property development sector.

It is generally believed that the real amount of overseas funds entering the property market is much larger, since not all funds are reflected by the current foreign exchange monitoring system.

A DTZ report released Thursday said that 93 percent of foreign investment in China's property market took place in Beijing and Shanghai, and that most of the investment came from the United States, Singapore and Australia.

The report reveals that office and retail property received 88 percent of foreign investment.

Foreign investment in residential property, which has given rise to most public concern amid soaring housing prices, only accounted for 7 percent.

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