Investment in China's urban areas was more than 4.3 trillion yuan (about 527 billion US dollars) in the first ten months of this year.

Statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics Wednesday showed that urban investment in October grew by 26.4 percent, but the growth rate dipped by 1.5 percent from September.

However, investment in real estate continued to grow from January to October, surging 28.9 percent to 952.6 billion yuan (115 billion US dollars), up 0.6 percentage point over the first nine months.

In the first ten months, investment in agriculture rose 23.1 percent to 47 billion yuan( about six billion US dollars) year-on-year, while those in industrial and service sectors hit 1.7 trillion yuan (210 billion US dollars) and 2.5 trillion yuan (311 billion US dollars), up 41.7 percent and 22.5 percent, respectively.

From January to October, domestic investment grew by 27.6 percent to 3.7 trillion yuan (456 billion US dollars), while that from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan jumped 34.5 percent to 233.3 billion yuan (28 billion US dollars).

Meanwhile, foreign investment in China's urban areas rose 56.3 percent to 295.5 billion yuan (36 billion US dollars), and domestic private investment grew 20.4 percent to 56.7 billion yuan (seven billion US dollars).

China's eastern regions led the rise of investment in urban areas with 2.4 trillion yuan (294 billion US dollars) in the year to October, up 27.7 percent year-on-year; while those in central and western regions surged 32.2 percent and 33.9 percent to 906.1 billion yuan (110 billion US dollars) and 931.7 billion yuan (113 billion US dollars), respectively.

In the first ten months, 120,138 new projects were opened to construction, an increase of 8,154 from the same period of last year.