Foreign firms invested a record 82.7 billion dollars in booming China last year, the government said Monday, with analysts adding the tide of money had undermined efforts to slow economic growth. The 2007 figure for foreign direct investment, or FDI, was up 13.8 percent from a year earlier, the commerce ministry said in a statement.
China has been striving to cool its economy over concerns that it could overheat and shudder into a sharp slowdown, but analysts said the nation's still-explosive growth continued to lure foreign firms.
"Inbound FDI is in no way helping the government's efforts to cool the economy, it is actually doing the opposite," said Feng Yuming, a Shanghai-based analyst with Oriental Securities. Experts estimate China's economy probably grew about 11.5 percent in 2007 - the fifth consecutive year of double-digit percentage growth.
Official figures are due Thursday, with many forecasters optimistic that China will grow reasonably strongly this year too despite the prospect of a sharp economic slowdown or even recession in the US. Foreign investment may continue to rise at a fast pace in 2008 due to the rising value of China's currency, the yuan, Feng said.
Total foreign direct investment, excluding that in the financial sector, amounted to 74.8 billion dollars last year, up 13.6 percent year-on-year, the commerce ministry's figures showed. China drew a then record 69.46 billion dollars in FDI in 2006. The government has been trying to channel the money away from real estate, resources and export-linked sectors in the interests of economic stability.