OREANDA-NEWS. September 22, 2014. Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland rose 1.9 percent in September from a year earlier, standing at 9.01 billion U.S. dollars, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said.
 
The pickup comes after a 14-percent slump seen in August. It's a sign that investors are more confident about the growth outlook in the world's second largest economy.
 
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.
 
The service sector is continuing to attract an increasing share of the FDI, with 55.7 percent of the FDI flowing into 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.
 
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.