China's FDI soars in June

China attracted $14.39 billion in foreign direct investments in June, up a hefty 20.12 percent year-on-year, the Commerce Ministry said Wednesday. The June FDI, the fifth straight monthly increase since February, was sharply higher than the 0.29 percent increase year-on-year in May. The June numbers do not include overseas fund influxes in banking, securities and insurance sectors, the ministry said. The increases have come despite China's slowing economy. China's second-quarter gross domestic product growth slipped to 7.5 percent year-on-year, down from the first quarter growth of 7.7 percent. For all of last year, the growth was 7.8 percent, the slowest since 1999. China's FDI in the first half of this year totaled $61.98 billion, up 4.9 percent year-on-year. "The FDI increase proved the competitiveness of the Chinese economy and international investors' recognition of the investment environment in China," Xinhua News Agency quoted ministry spokesman Shen Danyang as telling a news conference. "But we can not conclude that China's FDI has rebounded by simply looking at just a single-month's data. We expect the FDI in the second half to grow steadily." In the first half of this year, China approved the establishment of 10,630 foreign-invested enterprises, down 9.18 percent from a year earlier. Xinhua said nearly half of the new FDI in the January-June period was in the service sector, up 12.43 percent. The manufacturing sector attracted $26.44 billion, down 2.14 percent from last year.