China used 11.2 billion U.S. dollars in foreign direct investment (FDI) in January, a growth of 109.78 percent over the same period of last year, sources with the Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday.
By contrast, the year-on-year growth rate was 13.86 percent in January 2007.
Observers believed the impressive growth indicated foreign investors' strong confidence in China's sustained and rapid economic growth. They said in the coming months, FDI in China would remain large but its growth rate would slow down.
The Commerce Ministry sources said China's FDI absorption had entered a new stage, in which quality, instead of quantity, had begun to play a major role. Mergers and acquisitions perform in tandem with the establishment of new operations as the main pattern of FDI. While FDI kept growing, the number of newly established foreign-funded enterprises tended to go down.
In January, China approved the establishment of 2,918 foreign-funded companies, down 13.41 percent from the same month of last year. In comparison, the number for the whole of 2007 was 37,888, down 8.69 percent from the previous year.
Li Zhiqun, head of the foreign investment department of the Commerce Ministry, said earlier that the decline in numbers of new foreign-funded establishments was within a normal range.
According to the United Nations, 62 percent of transnational companies surveyed saw China as the first choice for their offshore investment targets in the 2005-2009 period.
Last year, China attracted 74.77 billion U.S. dollars in FDI, increasing 13.59 percent year-on-year and ranking first among developing nations for the 15th year in a row.
Source:Xinhua
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