Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland, in actual use, surged 28.7 percent year-on-year to 607.84 billion yuan, or $90.96 billion, in the first half of this year, the Ministry of Commerce said July 14. The value increased 27.1 percent from the same period in 2019. Foreign investment in the service industry came in at 482.77 billion yuan during the period, up 33.4 percent year-on-year, with foreign investment in the high-tech services sector rising 42.7 percent.

In H1, 23,000 foreign-invested companies were set up, a year-on-year increase of 47.9 percent, bringing the total number of foreign-invested firms to over 1.06 million. The country's 21 pilot free trade zones, covering less than 0.4 percent of the country's land area, attracted nearly 17 percent of the total FDI in H1.

Investment from the countries along the Belt and Road expanded 49.6 percent, and investment from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the European Union rose 50.7 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively.