The total investment in China's booming real estate sector has rocketed to an estimated 5.3 trillion yuan (US$657.6 billion) over the past five years.

According to the Ministry of Construction, China saw a rapid increase in real estate investment between 2001 and 2005, a crucial period in the country's rapid urbanization process.

Statistics show that the national real estate investment in the first 11 months of 2005 reached 1.324 trillion yuan, up on the total of 2004 -- 1.316 trillion yuan.

The ministry also revealed that by the end of 2005, the purchase of private housing had accounted for 93.2 percent of the total dealings, with residents spending 968 billion yuan, about twice that of the year 2000. Chinese residents' total expenditure on houses in the past five years has exceeded 4 trillion yuan.

The blooming market has also promoted the development of the second-hand house market, reported the ministry.

Currently, the total number of staff involved in house development, estate agents and property management have exceeded 4 million. And in 2004, the added value of the real estate industry reached 717.4 billion yuan, about 4.5 percent of China's national gross domestic product (GDP).

Between 2001 and 2005 nearly 1.3 billion square meters of new housing were built in China each year -- 570 million square meters in urban areas and 730 million square meters in rural areas.

At the end of 2005, the per capita living space in urban areas had increased to 26 square meters.

(Xinhua News Agency January 30, 2006)