China's fixed-asset investment down 4.1% in first five months

BEIJING -- China's fixed-asset investment dropped 4.1 percent year-on-year in the first five months of 2026, official data showed on Tuesday.

Such investment totaled 17.85 trillion yuan ($2.62 trillion) during this period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.

Excluding the property sector, the country's fixed-asset investment went down 1.2 percent in the first five months of the year.

A breakdown of the data revealed that investment in intellectual property products grew 9.3 percent year-on-year, while infrastructure investment increased 0.6 percent compared with the same period of last year, according to the NBS.

In the first five months of 2026, investment in high-tech industries grew 4.5 percent year-on-year. A closer look at individual sectors revealed that investment in computer and office equipment manufacturing soared 18.3 percent, input in aerospace and spacecraft manufacturing surged 16.7 percent, and that in information services climbed 13.8 percent in this period.

NBS Spokesperson Fu Linghui told a news conference that the fast innovation-driven development of emerging industries has pushed up investment in relevant areas, citing the robust increase in investment in intellectual property products, which was 0.4 percentage points faster than in the first four months, and contributed 1.1 percentage points to overall investment growth.

China retains large room for investment growth, Fu said, adding that it is necessary to give full play to the guiding role of government investment, stimulate the vitality of private investment, combine investment in physical assets with investment in human capital, and optimize the investment structure and efficiency, so as to better leverage the important role of effective investment in promoting high-quality development.