China’s FDI grows fastest in 4 years
Print Edition
CHINA’S foreign direct investment grew at its fastest pace in nearly four years last month despite the country’s weak economic performance at the start of this year, the Ministry of Commerce said yesterday.
Foreign investors channeled US$13.9 billion into the country in January, up 29.4 percent from a year earlier and the strongest showing since April 2011. Growth accelerated from December’s 10.3 percent increase.
Shen Danyang, a commerce ministry spokesman, said China remained an attractive place for foreign investors due to its massive market potential, good infrastructure and an improving business environment.
“China has been sticking to the policy of opening up the market to all investors, and has strengthened its efforts to protect the legal rights of foreign companies in the past year,” Shen said.
In 2014, China absorbed US$119.6 billion in non-financial foreign investment, up 1.7 percent year on year. This helped China surpass the United States to become the world’s top destination for foreign investment.
Growth gained sudden momentum at the end of last year after China hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Beijing, during which China pushed forward its strategy of reviving the ancient Silk Road and constructing a maritime equivalent.
Shen said global competition for foreign investment may heat up this year against a background of China’s economic slowdown and with all countries vying for more funds to bolster economic performance.
“It is hard to say whether China can retain the top position this year, but we expect the investment growth to stay stable as the country’s fundamentals will remain the same,” Shen said.
A string of economic indicators for the new year, including manufacturing and trade data, reflected a continued slowdown in China. Last year, China’s economy expanded 7.4 percent, the slowest in 24 years.
Zhu Haibin, JPMorgan’s chief China economist, said there had been “interesting changes” in investment activities. “First, there has been a noticeable shift of investment from manufacturing to the service sector. Second, foreign investment has shifted from the coastal area to inland cities.”
Foreign investment in services led the growth in January by surging 45.1 percent year on year to US$9.1 billion, or 66 percent of the total. Investment in manufacturing rose 13.9 percent to US$3.9 billion, 28.4 percent of the total.
Meanwhile, China’s outbound direct investment increased 40.6 percent year on year to US$10.1 billion in January, picking up from the pace of 31.8 percent in December.
Last year, China’s outbound direct investment reached US$116 billion, only slightly below the inbound investment.
“Given that the Chinese government encourages domestic companies to go out, we believe China’s outbound direct investment growth will continue to outpace that of inbound foreign investment and its value will exceed inbound foreign investment for the first time in 2015,” JPMorgan’s Zhu said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
