Also positively, fixed investment growth reached nearly 5% compared to the same period last year.
The other great Asian economy, India, is less dependent on exports and fixed investment for growth.
Real residential fixed investment increased 14.4 percent, compared with an increase of 8.5 percent.
Spending on software now accounts for over one-fourth of all U.S. private real fixed investment.
The next figure shows the change in fixed investment, excluding inventories, the most volatile component.
Real nonresidential fixed investment, however, declined 2.2 percent after increasing 3.6 percent in the second.
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Chinese fixed investment has plowed ahead despite the central government's greater steps to slow that activity.
Household spending has continued to advance, but growth in business fixed investment appears to have slowed.
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Consumer spending will no more than sidle ahead, and fixed investment will continue to decline.
Also, fear of inflation has caused a higher percentage of fixed investment to be directed into housing.
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Vaccine prices were too low to generate an attractive return on all the fixed investment required to maintain the manufacturing plants.
Residential fixed investment also dropped 19.1%, and equipment and software spending fell 5.5%.
Residential fixed investment increased 14.2 percent, compared with an increase of 8.5 percent.
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Much of that went to fixed investment like commercial and residential real estate.
More than half of the envisaged corporate fixed investment in large projects has been coming from infrastructure since 2008-09.
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Household spending and business fixed investment advanced, and the housing sector has strengthened further, but fiscal policy is restraining economic growth.
The housing market advanced as residential fixed investment, which includes spending on home improvements, grew by 15.3% in the fourth quarter.
Real nonresidential fixed investment decreased 1.3 percent in the third quarter, in contrast to an increase of 3.6 percent in the second.
Therefore overall private fixed investment edged up just 0.7% at annualised rates.
Residential fixed investment also dropped 19.1%, and equipment and software fell 5.5%.
This includes both residential fixed investment and consumption spending on housing services.
Non-residential fixed investment decelerated from a 10.5% rate of advance in 2011 to 7.5% in the first quarter and 3.6% in the second quarter.
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The anemic 0.4% GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2012 would have been even worse without a 17.6% surge in real residential fixed investment.
Moreover, the slow growth of business fixed investment, which the FOMC notes in its statement, is due to uncertainty and the high taxes on capital.
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Fixed investment in 2002 grew more slowly than the year before an ominous sign given the dire need to modernise clapped-out factories, equipment and public services.
Since the U.S. Department of Commerce began maintaining economic data in 1947, the long-term average growth rate in non-residential fixed investment has been roughly 4.16 percent.
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Real GDP rose 0.4% in the fourth quarter on the back of a solid housing sector, a resilient consumer, and higher than previously estimated non-residential fixed investment.
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Fixed investment, which is about 12% of GDP, shows a very modest sign of recovery and still stands nearly 22% below its peak level nine quarters ago.
Negative drivers were negative contributions from private inventory investment, federal government spending and exports, partially offset by personal consumption expenditures, nonresidential fixed investment and residential fixed investment.
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