Ministry of Commerce: China's foreign direct investment of 206.14 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2021 increased by 4.6% compared with the same period last year.

In the first quarter of 2021, China's foreign direct investment was 206.14 billion yuan (US $31.79 billion), an increase of 4.6% over the same period last year, of which foreign non-financial direct investment was 160.81 billion yuan (US $24.8 billion), down 4.9% from the same period last year. The turnover of foreign contracted projects was 195.31 billion yuan (US $30.12 billion), basically the same as that of the same period last year, and the newly signed contracts were 347.24 billion yuan (US $53.55 billion), down 10.2% from the same period last year. Foreign labor cooperation sent 74000 workers of all kinds, and 590000 workers abroad at the end of March. The main characteristics are as follows:

First, investment and cooperation with countries along the "Belt and Road Initiative" route has increased steadily. In the first quarter, China's non-financial direct investment in countries along the route reached 4.42 billion US dollars, an increase of 5.2 percent over the same period last year, accounting for 17.8 percent of the total in the same period, an increase of 0.5 percent over the same period last year. Newly signed contracts for contracted projects in countries along the route totaled US $31.34 billion, with a turnover of US $17.75 billion, up 19.4% and 12.4% respectively over the same period last year.

Second, investment flows to manufacturing, information transmission and other areas are growing rapidly. In the first quarter, investment to manufacturing was $3.84 billion, up 17.8 per cent from a year earlier, and to the information transmission industry was $1.62 billion, up 20.9 per cent from a year earlier.

Third, the outbound investment of local enterprises has increased. In the first quarter, local enterprises' outward non-financial direct investment reached 20.03 billion US dollars, an increase of 9.9 percent over the same period last year, accounting for 80.8 percent of the total outward direct investment in the same period. Outbound investment in the eastern, central and western regions increased by 7.2%, 45.6% and 6.3% respectively over the same period last year.

Fourth, foreign contracted projects are concentrated in the field of infrastructure. In the first quarter, the newly signed contracts for overseas infrastructure projects contracted by our enterprises totaled US $41.2 billion, with a turnover of US $24.6 billion, accounting for 77% and 81.6% of the total respectively.