China Q1 FDI at $29.9 bln, up 1.44%

China's foreign direct investment inflows increased 1.44 percent in the first three months of 2013 from a year earlier. This brings to an end the longest run of annual declines, as a mild recovery in the Chinese economy helped boost investor confidence. China's Ministry of Commerce says China attracted around 30 billion US dollars in foreign direct investment from January to March this year. To talk more about these numbers.

The FDI figure follows a raft of economic data for the first three months of the year. It ranges from slowing factory output to easing investment spending, which pointed to a weak but stable growth momentum in the world second largest economy. The Mofcom says China's FDI, for the whole year, is to remain stable growth.

A mild economic recovery restores investors confidence in the world second largest economy.

Figures from the Mofcom shows that China drew around 12.4 billion US dollars of foreign direct investment in March, up around 5.7 percent compared with the same period of last year.

The FDI figure followed China's strong export data in March, which provides further evidence that investors' sentiment to China improved.

Shen Danyang, Spokesman, MOFCOM, said, "We believe that how China can improve its efficiency of using FDI is more important than the FDI figures itself. Recent figures show that China's FDI were used in a more comprehensive and efficient way."

FDI is an important gauge of the health of China's external economy, to which China's vast factory sector is heavily relied upon.

Investment from both the EU and US had grown rapidly in March. Mofcom figures show that investment from 27 EU countries increased more than 45 percent to 2.1 billion US dollars year-on-year in the first quarter. Investment from the US rose 18.5 percent to 1.1 billion US dollars in the previous three months of the year.

Shen Danyang said,"Meanwhile, China's western regions received a growing number of investment in March. Overall, we believe FDI inflows into China is to see stable growth this year."

Meanwhile, investment to China's manufacturing sector recovered, as FDI into it increased 0.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter.

Boosted by China's pro-consumption policy, investment into China's service sectors continue to rise in March. FDI into the sector climbed more than 2.8 percent from January to March compared with a year ago.

China attracted a total of 111.7 billion US dollars of FDI in 2012, just shy of 2011's record of 116 billion US dollars and marking the first annual fall in three years.

The Chinese government said it aims to attract 120 billion US dollars worth of FDI each year between 2012 and 2015.