BEIJING, Oct. 16 -- Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland and Chinese companies' investment overseas registered year-on-year increases in September, pointing to upbeat investor sentiment and Chinese firms' bigger global footprint.

FDI into the Chinese mainland rose 1.9 percent to 9.01 billion U.S. dollars in September from a year earlier, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said on Thursday. The pickup came after a 14-percent slump seen in August and snapped a two-month decline trend.

It's a sign that investors are more confident about the growth outlook in the world's second largest economy, supported by a recent string of fiscal and monetary policies, observers said.

For the first nine months, the FDI, which excludes investment in the financial sector, topped 87.36 billion dollars, down 1.4 percent from the same period last year, with the decline pace narrowing from the 1.8 -percent registered in the first eight months, the ministry said.

With the service sector playing a bigger role in boosting growth, it is attracting an increasing share of the FDI, with 55.7 percent of the FDI flowing to the sector in the first nine months, up from the 55-percent recorded in the Jan.-Aug. period, said MOC spokesman Shen Danyang at a press conference.

Growth of FDI into the manufacturing sector in the first nine months dropped 16.5 percent year on year to 29.63 billion dollars, accounting for 33.9 percent of the total, down from the 35-percent reported in the first eight months, MOC data showed.

FDI from major economies posted diverging performance in the first nine months, with that from Republic of Korea and Britain up 32.5 percent and 32.3 percent from a year earlier respectively, while that from Japan and the United States down 43 percent and 24.7 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, China's outbound direct investment (ODI) by non-financial firms soared 90.5 percent year on year to hit 9.79 billion U.S. dollars in September, outshining the FDI flowing into China in the month.

For the first nine months, ODI stood at 74.96 billion U.S. dollars, up 21.6 percent from one year earlier. The increase accelerated from the 15.3-percent rise recorded in the January-August period, fresh evidence of Chinese businesses' efforts to "go out" to invest overseas.

The investment in the first nine months went to 4,475 overseas enterprises in 152 countries and regions, with Hong Kong, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the EU, Australia, the United States, Russia and Japan as top Chinese investment receivers, getting 74.6 percent of the ODI, or 55.92 billion dollars.

China is expected to attract about 120 billion dollars of FDI in 2014, and China's ODI may outpace the FDI flowing into China in 2015, as Chinese companies' global competitiveness in machinery, ship building, chemical and other industries were on the rise, the ministry said last month.