In the January-September period of this year, total fixed asset investments (FAI) (excluding rural households) in China amounted to RMB 46.1204 trillion ($6.52 trillion), up 5.4 percent year on year, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), with a year-on-year decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the increase rate in the January-August period this year.
Over the first nine months of this year, total FAI in China's infrastructure rose by 4.5 percent year on year, 0.3 percentage points higher than the increase recorded in the January-August period. Though the increases continued, they were not powerful enough to support total investments and provide solid support to steel demand. Market players are still expecting higher investments in infrastructure in the remainder of the year.
The growth rates of investments in China's mining sector in the January-September period remained stable compared to the January-August period, while the growth rate of investment in the manufacturing sector slowed down in the first nine months of the year by 0.1 percentage point compared to the January-August period.