Update: China July FDI recovers to 5.2% y-o-y: Xinhua

[BEIJING] China's foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows recovered in July after a marginal growth in the previous month, as investors focussed on the more resilient services industry, state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday.

In July, China attracted 50.6 billion yuan in FDI, up 5.2 per cent from a year earlier, the official news agency quoted the commerce ministry as saying.

That compared to a 0.7 per cent annual increase in June.

In the first seven months, China FDI grew 7.9 per cent to 471.1 billion yuan or US$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 per cent in January to July period from a year ago, according to Mr Huang. He did not provide a value figure for the service FDI.

Among 10 countries that were the biggest sources of China's FDI in the first seven months, France saw a remarkable investment growth, Mr Huang added.

FDI inflows into China rose 1.7 per cent in 2014, the slackest pace since 2012, while the total was a record US$119.6 billion.

REUTERS