国内英语新闻:China's September FDI up 6.14% to $8.384 bln, growth rate accelerates

BEIJING, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China in September rose 6.14 percent year on year to 8.384 billion U.S. dollars, bringing the country's FDI inflow for the first nine months back to pre-financial crisis level.

The September figure brought the total amount for the first nine months of this year to 74.34 billion U.S. dollars, rising 16.6 percent year on year, spokesman with the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) Yao Jian said Friday at a press conference.

The January-September FDI figure suggested China's FDI inflow had returned to pre-crisis level, Yao said.

According to MOC statistics, China received 74.37 billion U.S. dollars of FDI in the first nine months of 2008.

The September FDI increase quickened from the year-on-year growth of 1.38 percent in August.

The stable increase in China's FDI inflow was mainly boosted by the country's strong economic momentum, said Lu Zhengwei, chief analyst at the Industrial Bank.

Although China's economic growth had eased, it was still strong, Lu said.

China's GDP increased 10.3 percent year on year in the second quarter of this year, decelerating from first quarter's 11.9 percent. The National Bureau of Statistics is scheduled to release economic data for the third quarter next week.

China's manufacturing sector received 47.6 percent of FDI inflow in the first nine months, while services industry got 45 percent, Yao said.

A total of 19,209 foreign-invested enterprises were approved for establishment during the period, up 17.5 percent from one year earlier.

Yao expected China's FDI inflow to hit 420 billion U.S. dollars in the country's 11th Five-year Plan (2006-2010) period, which was 1.5 times as much as that in the 2001-2005 period. This would make China the world's second largest destination for FDI.

During the first nine months, China's outbound investment, excluding the financial sector, totaled 36.27 billion U.S. dollars, up 10.4 percent, he said. Some 30.9 percent of the investment outflow was for acquisitions of companies.