Home>News Center>China | ||
China: Foreign direct investment falls
SHANGHAI, China - Foreign direct investment in China fell slightly in the
first five months of the year, though contracts for future investment rose by 15
percent on-year in the same period, the government reported. Foreign direct investment in May totaled $4.89 billion, down 22 percent from last May, the report said. Contracted direct investment, an indicator of future spending, rose almost 15 percent from last year to $65 billion in the January to May period. Although foreign companies continue to build up investments in China, the pace of growth has been slowing in recent months. Investments soared in late 2003 through 2004 after slowing during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in the spring of 2003. China approved 16,437 new foreign-invested ventures between January and May, down 4.75 percent from the first five months of 2004. In 2004, China absorbed more than $60.6 billion in foreign investment, up 13 percent from 2003. Also Monday, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that China's main measure of inflation, the consumer price index, rose 1.8 percent in May from the same month a year earlier on higher meat and poultry prices. China's inflation has generally slowed since hitting a seven-year high of 5.3 percent last August. May's matched that of April, and both were well below the 2.7 percent increase reported for March. Still, China's economic planners have been seeking to curb investment and limit credit, warning that inflation remains a threat to the nation's robust economic growth, which has topped 9 percent the last two years. |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||