FDI Continues to Move Down    

Yao Jian, an official of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) of China, recently released that foreign direct investment (FDI) in June went down 6.8% to US$8.96 billion, being the tenth falling month consecutively for China. In June, 2 529 foreign firms were approved to set up subsidiaries in China, fell 3.8% year over year. Yao Jian said the decline was narrowing month by month and the manufacture sectors were interesting more foreign investors than other sectors.
   For the first half of 2009, FDI amounted to US$43 billion, down 17.9%, and 10 419 foreign firms were nodded to set up subsidiaries in China, decreased 28.4%. In the first five months this year, the net profit achieved by the foreign funded firms with annual revenue more than RMB5 million suffered a year-on-year drop of 22.4%. Foreign funded firms were divesting more from China.
    China based firms, with exception of financial companies, made a total oversea direct investment (ODI) of US$12.4 billion in the first six months, fell 51.7% than the year-ago period. There were super large ODI projects in the first half of 2008, explained Yao Jian. China has set up 907 firms at abroad in H1, which all were approved by MOC.  
    In H1 all China's engineering firms completed a total revenue of US$32.18 billion abroad, with a year-on-year growth of 52%, and got new contracts amounted to US$64.62 billion, up 80.2%.
    Domestic markets have remained boomed this year, according to Yao's report. Driven by the new stimulus policies regarding to household appliances and automobiles, the consumption in rural area boosted.  
   The declines on exports and imports were mainly caused by price falling, Yao Jian analyzed. In June the exportation prices plunged averagely by 8.4% than the same period of 2008, while the importation price on average fell 17.2% over the year-ago month.