BEIJING: China’s real estate investment growth slowed in July from June, as government curbs continued to cool an overheated property market and undermined investment, even though underlying demand in smaller cities appears resilient. As part of a broader effort to temper financial risks stemming from a build-up of debt since the 2009 financial crisis, Chinese authorities have imposed a range of cooling measures over the past year to deflate a housing bubble. The measures steps targeted at speculators in the biggest cities appear to be paying dividends. However, speculators have flocked to China’s smaller cities that have a massive overhang of unsold houses, which could worry policymakers who want to keep the property market stable ahead of a once-in-five-years Communist Party congress later this year. Growth in property investment, which mainly focuses on residential real estate but also includes commercial and office space, eased to 4.8 percent in July from a year earlier, versus 7.9 percent in June, a Reuters calculation from the National Bureau of Statistics’ data showed.