China's urban fixed asset investment rose 20.9 percent year-on-year to 4.7865 trillion yuan (761.22 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

The growth rate was down 2.9 percentage points from the figure registered for the whole year of 2011, the NBS said.

During the January-March period, investment in the primary industry jumped 35.8 percent to reach 88.6 billion yuan.

Investment in the secondary industry totaled 212.7 billion yuan, up 24.6 percent, while that in the tertiary industry expanded 17.6 percent to 1.7244 trillion yuan.

Meanwhile, investment in property development rose 23.5 percent to 1.0927 trillion yuan, down 10.6 percentage points from the same period last year and 4.4 percentage points lower from the full-year figure in 2011.

Sales volume of residential houses went down 14.6 percent year-on-year to 867.2 billion yuan, the NBS said.