Growth in China’s foreign direct investment slowed significantly in February due to seasonal factors. Meanwhile, investment in the services sector grew quickly while investment in manufacturing slowed.
China drew 19.3 billion US dollars in foreign direct investment in the first two months of 2014, up 10.4 percent from the same time last year.
FDI in February grew 4.1 percent from a year earlier, slowing sharply from a 16.1 percent increase in January. Ministry spokesman says that the data for February alone was not released due to seasonal distortion caused by the Chinese New Year. FDI from Asian and US economies rose faster than average.
"FDI from 10 Asian economies rose 11.6 percent, FDI from the U.S grew 43.3 percent from the same period last year. Investment from the EU dropped close to 14 percent year on year." said Shen Danyang, Spokesman, Ministry of Commerce.
The government has shifted its focus on attracting FDI inflows to high-end manufacturing, services sector and energy saving industries. Investment into the services sector has shown faster growth rate.
"Investment in the services sector accounts for more than half of the total investment in the first two months of this year. China’s services sectors received 10.6 billion dollars in FDI, up 25 percent from the same time last year." said Shen Danyang, Spokesman, Ministry of Commerce.
Outbound direct investment by Chinese firms totalled 11.5 billion dollars in the January-February period, down 37.2 percent from a year earlier. The sharp drop was due to a high comparison base caused by oil and gas producer CNOOC’s 15 billion dollar acquisition of Nexen in early 2013.
