High-tech attracts major global firms
China's foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows recovered in July after a marginal growth in the previous month, as investors focused on the more resilient services industry, the Xinhua News Agency said on Thursday.
In July, China attracted 50.6 billion yuan ($7.91 billion) in FDI, up 5.2 percent from a year earlier, the official news agency quoted the commerce ministry as saying. That compared with a 0.7 percent annual increase in June.
In the first seven months, FDI grew 7.9 percent to 471.1 billion yuan or $76.6 billion, Huang Feng, vice director of the foreign investment department of the ministry, was quoted as saying.
The figure is an important gauge of the health of external economy that supports manufacturing activities, but it is a small contributor to overall capital flows compared with the trillion-dollar-worth exporting business.
FDI into China's fast-growing services sector rose 19.6 percent in the January to July period from a year ago, noted Huang, who did not provide a value figure for the services FDI.
High-tech services and manufacturing are attractive to foreign investors, with major international firms increasing their investment, said Huang.
Foreign investment in the nation's high-tech services sector surged 63.3 percent to $4.9 billion in the January to July period. Intel Corp spent 6 billion yuan to buy 20 percent of the equity of a subsidiary of the Beijing-based Tsinghua Unigroup.
High-tech manufacturing attracted $5.5 billion of foreign investment in the first seven months, up 0.1 percent.
LG Chemical Co has invested $280 million in China since the beginning of the year on projects including optical filters and lithium batteries. Its investment in China has topped $3 billion in the past 20 years.
The EU invested $4.5 billion in the January to July period, up 18.4 percent.
Among the 10 countries and regions that were the biggest sources of China's FDI in the first seven months, France saw a remarkable investment growth, Huang added.
FDI inflows into China rose 1.7 percent in 2014, the slackest pace since 2012, while the total was a record $119.6 billion.
