BEIJING, Jan. 20 -- Investment in China's property sector rose 19.8 percent in 2013 from a year earlier to 8.6 trillion yuan (1.41 trillion U.S. dollars), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday.

The growth rate was 3.6 percentage points higher than the level in 2012.

Full-year investment in residential housing registered an annual increase of 19.4 percent, a growth 8 percentage points higher than the year before.

In 2013, construction began on 2.01 billion square meters of housing, up 13.5 percent from 2012.

Sales of commercial housing rose 17.3 percent to 1.31 billion square meters in the year, up 15.5 percentage points from 2012.

The volume of commercial housing sales climbed 26.3 percent to 8.14 trillion yuan, up 26.3 percent year on year. The growth rate was 16.3 percentage points higher than 2012.