China's actual foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2005 amounted to US$72.4 billion, up 19.42 percent over that of 2004, the revised statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce showed Thursday.

The newly revised figure is upward by 12 billion dollars over that announced by the ministry in January, which excludes the FDI received by the sectors of banking, insurance and securities.

The new figure reflects one important information of China's FDI that the sector of service has become an important field to attract foreign investors, said Ma Xiuhong, vice commerce minister, at a news conference.

Ma said that in 2005 the FDI received by the sector of banking, insurance and securities has reached US$11.8 billion, which indicates that China's modern service sector has become more and more open.

After its first release of FDI in January, the ministry will take a later revise on the figures to rank in the FDI of the financial sector.

Statistics show that in the first four months of 2006, a total of 12,639 foreign-funded companies were set up in China, with the FDI up 5.7 percent to US$18.48 billion over the same period of last year.

Ma said that the foreign-funded companies in China have accounted for 57.3 percent of China's overall export in 2005 and they took a share of 87.89 percent of the total high-tech products export.

Accounting for only 3 percent of China's overall companies, the foreign-funded companies have taken up 28.5 percent of the country's total industrial added value and 20.5 percent of the tax revenue, Ma said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 9, 2006)