"Growth in fixed investment is at decade lows as Beijing tries to steer the economy away from investment-led growth," said Fred Gibson, an associate economist at Moody's Analytics.

"We're likely to see a continuation of slower but more sustainable investment growth in 2014 as policymakers focus on rebalancing the economy to domestic consumption."

Tang Jianwei, a senior macroeconomic analyst at Bank of Communications Ltd, said the fallback in investment was mainly a result of mounting government debt pressure and worsening excess industrial capacity.

Tang said that slowing growth in public investment is likely to continue in 2014, but market-oriented reforms will unleash the potential of private investment, especially in the service sector, meaning steady growth in investment this year of about 19.3 percent.

Ma Jun, the chief economist for Deutsche Bank's Greater China Region, said steady investment growth this year will benefit sectors such as ports and shipping, textiles and electronics, and formerly restricted sectors such as medical care, renewable energy, railways and the Internet.

"Although we've been emphasizing the importance of consumption-driven growth, it's undeniable that investment will remain the major economic driver for a while, and the economic structure will be largely unchanged in 2014," said Zhu Baoliang, a senior economist with the State Information Center, a government think tank.