Foreign direct investment hits 2 1/2-year low

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China fell to a 2 1/2 year-low in August of USD$7.2 billion, down 14% from a year earlier, Reuters reported, citing the Ministry of Commerce. That left China with RMB481.2 billion (USD$78.3 billion) of FDI in the first eight months of 2014, down 1.8% from a year earlier. While FDI is an important gauge of the health of the external economy to which China’s vast factory sector is oriented, it is a small contributor to overall capital flows compared with exports, which were worth about USD$2 trillion in 2013.