China's fixed-asset investment maintained steady growth in the first ten months of 2016, with investment by the private sector showing signs of improvement, data released Monday showed. 
Fixed asset investment grew 8.3% year on year to 48.44 trillion yuan about (7.1 trillion US dollars) during the January-October period, up from the 8.2% gain seen in the first three quarters, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. 
Fixed-asset investment includes capital spent on infrastructure, property, machinery and other physical assets. 
Investment by the state sector surged 20.5% during the period, while private-sector investment increased 2.9%, 0.4 percentage points higher than that in the first nine months, as the government intensified efforts to boost growth in the sector. 
The torpid growth of private investment this year has concerned policymakers as the private sector regularly contributes more than 60% of China's GDP growth and provides over 80% of jobs, according to China's (Xinhua) News Agency. 
Private investment accounted for 61.5% of all investment in the first ten months, the NBS data showed.