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Foreign direct investment in China rebounds, industrial output rises |
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News |
April 12, 2000
BEIJING, APR 11 (AP) - Reversing a steady decline that has slowed economic growth, China's actually used foreign direct investment grew 10.3 percent in March, a senior trade official said Tuesday.
Ma Xiuhong, assistant minister for Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, didn't provide a nominal figure for March, but she told a news conference that the one-month rise brought first quarter actual foreign direct investment to dlrs 7.14 billion, a 2.7 percent decline from the same period last year.
"The figures in the first quarter reflect a relatively clear recovery," Ma said.
Contracted foreign direct investment in March soared 50.3 percent over the same month a year earlier, contributing to a 27.1 percent on-year increase to dlrs 11.08 billion in first quarter 2000, Ma said.
The jump in foreign investment mirrors a rebound in exports, which surged 41.2 percent in January and February from the same period in 1999, according to the General Administration of Customs.
Ma declined to disclose March or first quarter trade figures, but indicated the trend set in the first two months of 2000 was expected to continue.
Meanwhile, the State Statistical Bureau reported that China's industrial output value-added grew a faster-than-expected 11.9 percent year-on-year in March to 188.2 billion yuan (dlrs 22.9 billion).
Industrial output in the first quarter of 2000 grew 10.7 percent to 501.2 billion yuan (dlrs 60.7 billion), according to figures reported Tuesday on the web site of the official newspaper People's Daily.
The value-added, or incremental value, of industrial production excludes the cost of raw materials used in the manufacturing process. It is China's benchmark measure of industrial production.
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