Actual foreign direct investment in China in the first four months of this year totalled US$14.136bn, 29.1 per cent more than in the same period of 2001, according to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. The rise in the first three months of the year was 27.5 per cent. Contracted foreign investment rose by 5.1 per cent in the January-to-April period to US$21.281bn. The rise in the first quarter had been 11.4 per cent but the ministry offered no explanation for the fall. In the first four months of the year, 8,920 new foreign-funded enterprises were set up, 20 per cent more than a year earlier.