RECYCLING OIL AND GAS: A staff member introduces a gas station's recycling system in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province. On March 19, all the gas stations in the city started renovation projects on petroleum and gas recycling (ZHANG WENKUI)

Housing Price Surge

New home prices rose steeply in more Chinese cities in February, putting the government in an increasingly complex situation of regulating the bubble-ridden market.

Of a statistical pool of 70 major Chinese cities monitored by the National Bureau of Statistics, 66 saw home prices increase within 3.1 percent in February from a month earlier, while three saw prices remain unchanged and only one reported price falls.

Newly built commercial housing prices in Beijing and Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, saw the largest increase of 3.1 percent on a month-on-month basis, followed by Shanghai and Shenzhen with price hikes of 2.3 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.

Zhang Dawei, director of Centaline Property's research center, attributed the growth to panicky homebuyers driven into hurried purchases by worries that prices may rise further following the recent gaining streak.

FDI Rebound

China's foreign direct investment (FDI) stood at $8.21 billion in February, expanding by 6.32 percent year on year. This put an end to a streak of declines for eight consecutive months since June 2012.

"The rebound is a heartening fact," said Shen Danyang, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, adding that it showed the competitiveness of China's economy and foreign investors' confidence in its business environment and growth prospects.

In the first two months, total FDI inflow dropped 1.35 percent to $17.48 billion from the same period last year.

"Our general estimate is that FDI will remain steady for the whole year, which means significant rises and drops are not likely," Shen said.

Overseas direct investment by Chinese companies, excluding investment in the financial sector, surged by a robust 147.3 percent year on year to $18.39 billion in the first two months.

Confidence Boost

Amid growing public concern about inflation, Chinese entrepreneurs and bankers are more confident about the country's economic outlook.

The entrepreneurs' confidence index rose 7.6 percentage points to 68 percent in the first quarter this year from the fourth quarter in 2012, the People's Bank of China (PBC) said in a report, citing results from a survey of over 5,700 local entrepreneurs.

In a separate report based on a survey of 3,100 bankers, the PBC said their confidence index was up 17.2 percentage points to 72.2 percent from the previous quarter.

Though the country's economy is improving, the PBC survey found that more people are concerned about price rises.

Of the 20,000 savers the bank surveyed, around 62.1 percent considered prices high, while 68 percent described housing prices as "high and hard to accept."