China has 440,900 foreign-funded companies

BEIJING - Some 440,900 foreign-invested companies had been set up in China by the end of June, up 0.93 percent year-on-year, according to a report released by the State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC) on Tuesday.

Their registered capital rose 6.99 percent from a year earlier to 12.09 trillion yuan ($1.95 trillion).

In the first half of this year, the number of newly-registered companies fell 6.74 percent to 16,600. Their registered capital increased 4.08 percent to 380 billion yuan.

Amid the lackluster global economic environment, multinational companies scaled back their investment in China. The actual use of foreign direct investment declined for eight consecutive months since June 2012, but posted a slight recovery since then.

According to the SAIC report, China had 14.08 million business enterprises by the end of June, up 7.62 percent year on year. Their registered capital rose 15.3 percent to 89.02 trillion yuan.