China's National Real Estate Indices, which gauges the country's real estate development, hit 104.0 points last month, the highest in three years, the National Bureau of Statistics announced yesterday.

The index, 0.37 points higher than the previous month, has registered a year-on-year growth of 0.49 points. The index has steadily climbed for the past three months after a downward spiral during the first quarter of this year. In July the Real Estate Development Investment Index reached 103.41 points, having climbed 0.56 points from the previous month. It registered a year-on-year increase of 1.89 points.

Utilized foreign investment surged to 33.3 billion yuan by the end of last month, with robust growth of 74.5 percent compared with last year. From January to July, the country utilized 1,868.9 billion yuan for real estate development. This figure indicates a year-on-year growth of 29.6 percent.

Although real estate market heated up in July, the vacant development space declined. The Index of Land Space Development went down 0.13 points from a month earlier to 97.93 points last month, declining by 3.06 points as compared with last year.

(China.org.cn by Wu Jin, August 21, 2007)