Invest KOREA

South Korea was the sixth-largest foreign investor in China last year, as the country continues to pump its money into the world's second-largest economy, according to the Chinese government's report on Sunday.

During the January-December period in 2010, South Korea invested US$2.69 billion. Hong Kong was the top foreign investor with $67.47 billion, followed by Taiwan with $6.7 billion, Singapore with $5.66 billion and Japan with $4.24 billion, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said.

South Korea immediately followed the U.S., which ranked fifth with investments of $4.05 billion, adding about 50 percent to its investment into Asia's economic powerhouse. The Ministry of Commerce earlier estimated that South Korea invested $2.7 billion in 2009.

Other top 10 foreign investing countries included Britain with $1.64 billion, France with $1.239 billion, the Netherlands with $952 million and Germany with $933 million.

The actual input of foreign capital of the 10 countries or regions accounted for 90.1 percent of the country's total inbound investment.

Inbound foreign investment into China increased 17 percent in 2010, while foreign direct investment actually used in China from January to December last year grew to $105.74 billion, up 17.44 percent from the previous year.

The number of newly approved foreign-funded enterprises in China totaled 27,406 in 2010, up by 16.94 percent year-on-year.

Source: Yonhap News (Jan. 30, 2011)