BEIJING - China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Friday that the country's non-public fixed asset investment during the first four months of the year reached 4.69 trillion yuan ($746.8 billion), up 27.3 percent year-on-year.

It marked the first time for the nation's statistical authority to release data on private fixed asset investment, an effort to track the development of private investment in the world's second-largest economy.

The NBS also said that the release of the data was in accordance with the government's requirement on enhancing data calculations on private investment as the country seeks to encourage and guide the healthy development of private investment.

The NBS said that private fixed asset investment accounted for 62 percent of the nation's overall urban fixed asset investment, which rose 20.2 percent year-on-year to 7.56 trillion yuan in the first four months.

In the nation's eastern regions, private fixed asset investment grew 25 percent to 2.53 trillion yuan in the first four months, while the growth rate slowed 0.9 percentage point compared to that of the January-March period.

Investment in the central regions grew 28.3 percent to 1.27 trillion yuan, while that in the western regions surged 32.6 percent to 888.9 billion yuan, according to the NBS data.

During the first four months, private fixed asset investment in the primary industry hit 116.1 billion yuan, up 42.1 percent year-on-year, investment in the secondary industry grew 28.7 percent to 2.44 trillion yuan, and investment in the tertiary industry rose 24.9 percent to 2.13 trillion yuan, the data showed.