Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China grew 26.03 percent year-on-year to reach 38.8 billion U.S. dollars during the first four months of this year, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said on Tuesday.

In April, the FDI climbed 15.21 percent to 8.46 billion U.S. dollars, down from March's growth of 32.9 percent, MOC spokesman Yao Jian said during a regular briefing.

While March saw 2,538 new foreign-invested companies being approved to operate in China, 2,215 foreign-invested companies were approved last month, up 8.21 percent from the same period in 2010.

China has approved 8,152 new foreign-invested companies over the past four months, a rise of 8.61 percent year-on-year.

OUTBOUND DIRECT INVESTMENT RISES

China's outbound direct investments hit 13.4 billion U.S. dollars during the first four months of 2011, up 17.5 percent year-on-year, according to Yao. This brought China's cumulative outbound non-financial direct investments to 272.2 billion U.S. dollars as of the end of April, Yao said.

About 4.2 billion U.S. dollars, or 31.3 percent of China's total outbound direct investments over the past four months, were channeled into company mergers, he said.

The country's overseas contracted projects brought in 24.88 billion U.S. dollars in revenues during the same period, up 7.8 percent year-on-year, according to Yao. The value of new contracts stood at 43.66 billion U.S. dollars, up 19.2 percent from one year earlier, Yao said.

About 775,000 Chinese laborers were stationed overseas by the end of April this year, nearly 22,000 less than in the same period last year, according to Yao. This is partly due to recent unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, which resulted in the evacuation of thousands of Chinese nationals.