BEIJING, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- The following are the highlights of China's business news from the past week:

-- INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT

China's value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, continued to recover as factories stepped up production amid effective COVID-19 control, official data showed.

Industrial output went up 5.6 percent year on year in August, accelerating from a rise of 4.8 percent registered in July, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

-- RETAIL SALES

China's retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of consumption growth, expanded for the first time this year in August.

In August, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 3.36 trillion yuan (about 497.1 billion U.S. dollars), rising 0.5 percent year on year.

-- INVESTMENT

China's fixed-asset investment (FAI) edged down 0.3 percent year on year during the January-August period, with the decline narrowing from the 1.6-percent fall in the first seven months.

In the first eight months, the FAI amounted to 37.88 trillion yuan, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

-- HOME PRICES

China's housing market remained generally stable in August, with a slight month-on-month rise in home prices in major cities, official data showed.

New home prices in four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen -- rose by 0.6 percent month on month in August, up 0.1 percentage points from a month earlier, according to data from the NBS.

Thirty-one second-tier cities reported a month-on-month increase of 0.6 percent in new home prices, compared with a 0.5-percent rise in July, while 35 third-tier cities witnessed a month-on-month growth of 1 percent in new home prices, with a slightly faster pace compared with the 0.8-percent expansion in July.