BEIJING, March 16 (UPI) -- Foreign direct investments in China fell 0.9 percent year-on-year in February, to $7.73 billion, largely due to the eurozone debt, the Commerce Ministry said.
It was the fourth straight monthly decline, as investments from Europe declined sharply, the ministry said.
Experts told China Daily they are not optimistic about the foreign investment inflow as long as the European debt crisis continues and domestic economic growth slows down.
"This is not good news, it reflects the gloomy global economy," said Wang Zhile, the Commerce Ministry's director of the research center for transnational cooperation.
He said doubts remain among foreign companies about the global economy and China's foreign investment environment.
"China has witnessed rapid growth (in FDI) for a few decades. We cannot expect robust growth to be sustained over a long period," he added.
Investments from the 27-nation European Union in the first two months of 2012 fell more than 33 percent year-on-year to $906 million.
"It's hard to tell whether investment from the region will continue to drop sharply," ministry spokesman Shen Danyang said.
FDI's from the Asia-Pacific region -- including Japan, Singapore and South Korea -- increased 2.66 percent during the same period to $15.38 billion, while investments from the United States were up 0.87 to $525 million, the report said.
"China needs further opening-up, otherwise, foreign companies will move to somewhere else," said Professor Xia Youfu at the University of International Business and Economics.
China's outbound direct investment (ODI) in January and February, in the non-financial sector, surged by 41.1 percent from a year earlier to $7.44 billion, the ministry said.
