China foreign direct investment continues to fall
2012-10-19 12:19:09
Foreign direct investment in China continued to shrink in September as a slowdown in world's second largest economy dampened firms' spending plans.
FDI contracted 6.8 percent year-on-year in September to $8.43 billion, the latest figures from the Ministry of Commerce showed Friday. This was slightly up from August's inflow of $8.33 billion.
Investment in the first nine months of the year fell 3.8 percent to $83.4 billion compared with $75 billion in the first eight months.
The dismal figures follow a slew of upbeat data released Thursday, which signaled a likely rebound in economic activity at the end of the third quarter.
Retail sales, industrial production and fixed asset investment all showed a faster improvement in September, though growth in national output continued to weaken for a seventh quarter.
China's gross domestic product grew 7.4 percent year-on-year in the third quarter following a 7.6 percent rise in the second quarter.
According to data released over the weekend, the country's foreign exchange reserves rose to $3.29 trillion at the end of September from $3.24 trillion at the end of June. However, the rate of growth has slowed sharply since December 2011 due to slowing economic growth and the government's measures aimed at achieving more balanced growth in foreign trade.
China saw some improvement in external trade in September with exports rising 9.9 percent and imports rebounding with a 2.4 percent increase. The government has recently introduced a number of measures to stabilize export growth, including faster payment of export tax rebates and boosting loans to exporters.