China's fixed asset investment rose 20.6 percent year on year to 36.48 trillion yuan (5.81 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

The growth rate dropped 3.4 percentage points from a year earlier, the NBS said at a press conference.

Last year, investment in the agricultural sector surged 32.2 percent to 900.4 billion yuan. Investment in the industrial sector grew 20.2 percent to 15.87 trillion yuan, while the service sector saw a 20.6 percent rise to hit 19.72 trillion yuan.

Investment in the nation's central regions witnessed the fastest growth of 25.8 percent, followed by 24.2 percent in the west and 17.8 percent in the east.

Investment in property development climbed 16.2 percent to 7.18 trillion yuan, down 11.9 percentage points from the growth rate of the previous year, the bureau said.