China's real estate investment increased 11.2 percent year on year in the first five months of the year, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.

The growth was slower than the 11.9-percent expansion recorded in the January-April period, but was faster than the 9.5-percent growth seen last year.

The total property investment in the first five months amounted to 4.61 trillion yuan (about 667 billion US dollars), with 73.3 percent used in residential buildings, the NBS said.

In the January-May period, the investment in residential buildings went up 16.3 percent year on year to 3.38 trillion yuan, according to the NBS.

During the same period, China's real state developers built buildings of 7.45 billion square meters in floor area, an increase of 8.8 percent year on year.

Commercial housing sales measured by floor area came in at 555.18 million square meters in the first five months, down 1.6 percent year on year, with the sales in value reaching 5.18 trillion yuan, up 6.1 percent from a year earlier.