North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region will invest 240 billion yuan (28.92 billion US dollars) in fixed assets this year, a 30 percent increase year-on-year.

Investment will mainly focus on agriculture, livestock raising,environmental protection, irrigation, road construction and energygeneration.

Rural infrastructure will be upgraded and some farm land will be returned to woods and grassland in a bid to protect the environment, according to local government work schedule.

The region completed about 171.51 billion yuan (20.66 billion US dollars) of fixed assets investment in 2004, up 53 percent fromthe previous year or 25.4 percent more than the average level across the country.

To slow down investment in some over-heated industries, the region has taken measures to slow fixed assets investment. The growth rate of fixed assets investment is down about 23.7 percent this year from last year.

Xinhua