China's foreign direct investment (FDI) in the "11th Five-Year Plan" period (2006-2010) is projected to top 420 billion U.S. dollars, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Monday.

The figure is 1.5 times that found in the previous five years, making China the world's second largest destination for FDI, the MOC said in a statement posted on its website.

Also, China's FDI decline was far below the world's average level amid the severe impact due to the global financial crisis in 2009, and was among the first to recover, which indicated that the government counter-crisis measures have effectively boosted investor confidence, said an unnamed official with the MOC in its statement.

Foreign invested companies have become one of the most important channels to create wealth and jobs in China, said the statement, adding that industrial output, tax revenue and export volume generated by foreign invested companies have accounted for 28 percent, 22 percent and 55 percent, respectively, of the nation's total.

Further, these companies are expected to create about 45 million jobs during the 2006-2010 periods, the statement said.

A total of 19,209 foreign-invested enterprises were approved for establishment during the first nine months of 2010, and the nation' s FDI rose 16.6 percent year on year to 74.34 billion U.S. dollars over this period, according to earlier MOC data.