China is making less use of foreign investment this year, according to statistics released Friday by the Ministry of Commerce.

Only 37.192 billion U.S. dollars was used from January to August, down 2.11 percent from the same period of last year.

At the end of June, China announced that 28.428 billion U.S. dollars had been used in the first half of the year, down 0.47 percent year-on-year.

Foreign investment used in August rose 4.83 percent over the July figure, reaching 4.486 billion U.S. dollars. However, the figure went down 8.49 percent from that of August 2005. Comparative figures in July was down 5.49 percent year-on-year.

Despite the decline in the use of foreign investment, China is speeding up the introduction of foreign technology.

Official statistics show that China signed 7,274 contracts involving foreign technology worth 16.42 billion U.S. dollars, up 55.3 percent over the same period of last year.

Source: Xinhua