Investments from the European Union in China increased 22.3% to USD 6.4 billion from January to October. This was revealed by the Ministry of Commerce in a press conference on November 18. Firms from the US also increased their investments by 12.4%, pouring USD 3 billion to the world's second largest economy. Japanese investors also increased its investments by 6.3% to USD 6.5 billion. Meanwhile, the biggest investment came from Hong Kong companies who gave USD 63.5 billion which represented a 10.5% rise.
Total investments coming in to China for the first 10 months of the year increased by 5.8% to USD 97 billion. Meanwhile, outbound investment grew much faster. The amount that Chinese firms invested abroad reached USD 69.5 billion for that time period, representing a 20% increase.
In the press conference, Ministry of Commerce spokesman Shen Danyang said "We can see that foreign investment from Asian countries, the European Union, and the U.S. all kept relatively fast growth in the first 10 months."
Foreign investors placed USD 50 billion to China's service industries, a figure which reflected a 14% increase in the first 10 months of the year. Overseas investments in the manufacturing sector dropped by 5.2%, pulling in only USD 38 billion. Investors also drew away from the agriculture, fishery and animal husbandry sectors which saw a 2.6% drop in investments.
In terms of the area where investors poured their money most, Eastern China tops the list. In the first 10 months, the eastern part of the mainland raked in USD 81.4 billion in investments which comprised 84% of the total. Although investments in the central portion of China increased 9.9%, the region only raked in USD 8.6 billion which made up only 8.8% of the overall totals. Western China, too, did not do as well. Investments plunged 1.1% to USD 7.1 billion, comprising only 7.3% of the total investments.
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