BEIJING — The revenue of China's trust industry maintained rapid growth while its scale continued to fall during the first quarter of the year, according to a report from the China Trustee Association.

The country's 68 trust companies had 21.33 trillion yuan (about $3 trillion) worth of entrusted assets at the end of March, compared with 21.6 trillion yuan at the end of last year.

Despite downward economic pressures caused by the novel coronavirus epidemic, the industry reported faster revenue growth during the first quarter, the report showed.

The industry reaped 25.57 billion yuan in revenue, up 10.88 percent year-on-year. The growth rate was 7.95 percentage points higher than that at the end of last year.

Echoing the country's principle of "houses are for living in, not speculation," the industry channeled less capital to the property sector and more to the real economy and small businesses.

The real estate sector had a total of 2.58 trillion yuan of investment from the industry at the end of March, down 125 billion yuan from the end of last year. In contrast, industrial and commercial businesses continued to receive the lion's share of investment, according to the report.