China’s ability of absorbing foreign capital remains strong: UNCTAD

The inflow volume of global foreign direct investment declined 18 percent in 2012, and China witnessed a 3.4 percent decrease in foreign capital absorbed, according to the Trade and Development Report 2012 issued by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on Jan 23 in Geneva. The report says China still remains the main target country for foreign investment.

Zhan Xiaoning, chief of the Investment and Enterprise Department of the UNCTAD, said at the report news conference that the inflow volume of the global foreign direct investment obviously declined last year from 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars in 2011 to 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars in 2012, a decline rate of 18 percent.

The uncertainty of investors, which resulted from the slump macroeconomic environment, continuously blocked the recovery of foreign direct investment. Meanwhile, some risk elements affected the confidence of decision makers, like sovereign debt crisis, U.S. “financial cliff” and policy adjustments of some economy entities due to government changes.

Zhan said good news revealed from the report is that developing economic entities performed stronger toughness during the global economic landslide last year. Although foreign direct investment of developing countries reduced 3.2 percent from the previous year, the amount of 680 billion U.S. dollars tops the second highest on record, which is 130 billion U.S. dollars more than that of developed countries.

In spite of production cost increase of manufacture industry or the demand weakness of export market, China remains the main target country of foreign investor, with direct investment of 120 billion U.S. dollars, a slight decline of 3 percent from the year earlier. 　

China’s economic growth rate reached 7.8 percent last year, and the World Bank predicted 8 percent increase this year, which helps maintain investors’ confidence and enthusiasm.

Edited and translated by Ma Xi, People's Daily Online
Read the Chinese version: 中国吸引外资能力不减
Source: People's Daily 　　

We recommend:
Report on the rich in China released	Sales boosting measures for Spring Festival	1st express sleeper train starts operation
Top 10 most transparent multinational companies	Top Ten Economic Events in 2012	Beijing leads nation on rich list