The flow of foreign direct investment into China, dubbed as the world's factory, continued its slight decline in the first eight months this year.
China attracted $38.0 billion in FDI from January to August, down 3.02 per cent from a year earlier, the ministry of commerce said.
Contracted direct investment to China, which has not yet been executed but indicates future trends, stood at $112.7 billion in the first eight months, an increase of 20.7 per cent over the same period of last year.
The ministry said the government approved 28,393 new foreign-invested ventures, down 1.03 per cent year-on-year.
In August alone, 3,741 foreign-invested enterprises were approved by the Chinese government, with the monthly-realised FDI dropping 0.26 per cent year-on-year to $4.9 billion.
Contracted FDI reached $14.1 billion, up 32.05 per cent on a year earlier. However, these short-term declines are not a major new trend in FDI flows, said Lu Jinyong, an investment researcher of the University of International Business and Trade.
"A decline is natural after the great increase last year," he said. China attracted a total FDI of $60.6 billion in 2004, up 13.32 per cent over the previous year. Although the two per cent Chinese currency revaluation is expected to have some impact on investment in China, the country still remains attractive to foreign enterprises, he said.