Property investments hit 3.6t yuan

China invested a whopping 3.6 trillion yuan in the property market last year, a 16 percent year-on-year jump from 2008, the nation's top statistician said at a news conference yesterday.

While property development investments rose 16.1 percent, sales and construction starts slowed, Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, said.

Property sales were up 43 percent year-on-year in December, a major decline from the 100 percent leap in sales seen in November, according to figures from the bureau.