China January-Februay FDI down 8.6 % year-on-year in yuan terms on hit from coronavirus

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China fell 8.6% in January-February to 134.4 billion yuan ($19.26 billion) compared with a year earlier, dragged down by the coronavirus pandemic, a commerce ministry official said on Friday.

In February, FDI into China plunged 25.6% on-year to 46.83 billion yuan, Zong Changqing, the director of the ministry's department of foreign investment, told a press conference.

The drop in FDI was due to coronavirus epidemic and the Chinese New Year holidays, Zong added.

(Reporting by Gao Liangping, Lusha Zhang and Huizhong Wu; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)