China investment to pick up, can meet 2014 economic growth target - planner

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's investment growth should pick up in the coming months as authorities hasten construction of water conservancy and other infrastructure projects to support growth, a senior official at the country's powerful economic planner said on Tuesday.

Quickening investment in projects such as refurbishing shanty towns and building rail networks and water facilities should boost the broader economy, said Li Pumin, general secretary of the National Development and Reform Commision (NDRC).

Li said he was confident that China can achieve its full-year economic growth target of around 7.5 percent, though many private economists think that goal is in doubt unless the government rolls out more measures to stimulate activity and offset the drag from a cooling property market.

"Economic growth will remain within a reasonable range in the fourth quarter and we are confident of achieving the full-year economic growth target," Li told a news conference.

Fixed-asset investment, a crucial driver of the world's second-biggest economy that contributed to half of last year's growth, has sagged this year as a cooling manufacturing sector and the softening housing market discouraged spending.

Analysts expect China's investment growth to hit a near 13-year low of 16.3 percent between January and September. The latest investment data will be released along with September industrial output and retail sales readings and third-quarter gross domestic product on Oct 21.

Annual economic growth likely slowed to 7.3 percent in the third quarter - the weakest pace in more than five years - as the property downturn weighed on demand for everything from glass to cement and steel, a Reuters poll showed. [ID:nL3N0S51B1]

"We expect the pace of slowdown in investment to ease in coming months, as policy gradually produces results," Li told reporters at a briefing.

China will launch 172 key water conservancy projects in the coming years, officials at the briefing said.

They said work on some projects worth around 600 billion yuan ($98 billion) was already under way, but did not give a total investment figure for all 172 projects.

Most new projects were still in the preparatory stage that involved environmental impact assessment and studies on how to resettle people that could be affected, officials said.

The government hopes to attract private investors into some water projects, allowing them to participate via equity investment or build-operate-transfer (BOT) arrangements, they said.

The announcement had little effect on the shares of most major listed water companies, but Jiangxi Sanchuan Water Meter Co Ltd surged 10 percent, providing the biggest lift to the small-cap ChiNext growth board in Shenzhen.

"The NDRC conference will not have too much impact on the market, as it is not a brand new policy," said Xiao Shijun, an analyst at Guodu Securities in Beijing.

"The State Council has said this before, and it has been a strategy to shore up the sloppy economy since earlier this year."

The remarks came after Premier Li Keqiang recently promised to launch major investment projects in information networks, water conservancy and environmental protection to support the economy. [ID:nL3N0S33H5]

Beijing has encouraged local governments to fast-track spending on projects this year along with a host of other stimulus measures aimed at more vulnerable sectors of the economy, such as lowering mortgage rates for some home buyers in late September.

China's central bank moved again on Tuesday as part of its ongoing efforts to keep market interest rates relatively low to encourage more borrowing. The People's Bank of China lowered the yield at its bond repurchase agreement auctions for the second time since July.

(1 US dollar = 6.1236 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Kevin Yao; Editing by Shri Navaratnam & Kim Coghill)