China is not worried about the declining actual use of foreign funds, which dropped 0.79 percent in the first five months of this year compared with the same period of last year, Chen Jian, assistant minister of commerce, said in Beijing Tuesday.

However, Chen said, the contractual foreign investment stood at 64.97 billion US dollars in the first five months, a rise of 14.88percent from the corresponding period of 2004.

"This showed that China is still attractive to foreign investment," Chen told a news briefing on Tuesday.

It is reported that from January to May, China's actual use of foreign funds came to 22.37 billion US dollars, down 0.79 percent on a year-on-year basis, with the actual use of foreign funds in May standing at 4.89 billion dollars, a drop of 10.29 percent.

Chen attributed the decline in the actual use of foreign funds to many factors and denied that the country's tightening macro-control and credit policies have had a direct effect on attracting foreign investment over the past two months.

He said that China will continue to stick to the reform and opening up policy and will continue to improve the investment environment in a bid to to attract foreign funds.

China is going to further allow foreign investors to have accessto more sectors, Chen noted. For example, he said, new policies have been adopted to encourage foreign investors to help the reform of the country's old industrial production bases in northeast China.

"We have full confidence in the future," Chen said.

Source: Xinhua