Chinese investment remains at 16-year low

Growth in China’s fixed-asset investment (FAI) remained stuck at a 16-year low in the first eight months of the year and may not see much improvement for the rest of the year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The FAI rose by 8.1% from a year earlier in the January-to-August period, the same pace as in January-to-July. The growth is the weakest since the end of 1999, according to Caxin. Investment in the property market, a key pillar of the economy, is showing signs of cooling – it grew by 5.4% in the first eight months of 2016. Although that’s marginally higher than the 5.3% pace in the first seven months, it’s still down from 7.2% in the first four months of the year, which was a 2016 high.