'Economic Slump' in China, Foreign Direct Investment Down 9.4% This Year

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China this year has decreased by 9.4% compared to last year.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

According to local Chinese media on the 18th, the Ministry of Commerce of China reported that FDI into China from January to October this year amounted to 987.01 billion yuan (approximately 177.3 trillion KRW), down 9.4% from the same period last year. China only releases cumulative FDI statistics from January to the previous month and does not disclose monthly figures. Since August, it has only published FDI figures denominated in yuan.

Market research firm Wind, through its own analysis, estimated that FDI inflows into China in September amounted to 72.8 billion yuan (about 13.1 trillion KRW), a sharp 34% drop compared to the same month last year. On a monthly basis, this is the largest decline since 2014.

This is due to the Chinese economy failing to recover from recession, coupled with economic crisis concerns arising as developers such as Evergrande and Biguiyuan face successive defaults.

In the first half of this year, FDI in yuan terms decreased by 2.7% compared to the same period last year; this decline widened to 4% from January to July, and further to 5.1% from January to August. When converted to dollars, the FDI decline from January to July expanded to 9.8%.

Regarding the FDI decrease, the Ministry of Commerce emphasized that it is an optical illusion caused by the slowdown in global economic recovery and the unusually high surge last year, stressing that China remains an attractive investment destination.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.