China's FDI Up for Third Consecutive Month in October

BEIJING, Nov. 17 -- China's foreign direct investment (FDI) saw a third consecutive monthly increase in October, up 5.7 percent year on year, the Ministry of Commerce said Monday.

    In October, China attracted 7.1 billion U.S. dollars in FDI, compared with more than 6.7 billion U.S. dollars in October 2008, said Yao Jian, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce.

    China has approved the establishment 18,163 overseas-funded enterprises in the first 10 months this year, down 20 percent from the same period last year. It approved 1,815 such enterprises in October.

    The FDI actually used nationwide in the first 10 months amounted to 70.87 billion U.S. dollars, down 12.6 percent from the same period of 2008.

    Yao said China's manufacturing sector actually used 12.5 percent less FDI in the first 10 months than a year earlier, and the reading for the service sector was down 14.5 percent, without giving absolute numbers.

    China saw investment inflows down for 10 straight months from October last year to July due to the global economic slowdown.

    (Source: Xinhua)