A total of 42,108 new foreign-invested firms were established across China in the first nine months of 2024, up 11.4 percent year on year, the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.

During this period, foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Chinese mainland in actual use totaled 640.6 billion yuan (about 90.1 billion U.S. dollars), down 30.4 percent from a year earlier, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

The hi-tech manufacturing sector attracted 77.12 billion yuan, or 12 percent of the total FDI inflow, up 1.5 percentage points from the same period last year.

Notably, FDI inflows into medical equipment and instrument manufacturing surged 57.3 percent, while inflows into computer and office device manufacturing grew by 29.2 percent during this period.

In terms of source countries, FDI from Germany and Singapore increased by 19.3 percent and 11.6 percent year on year, respectively, data from the ministry showed.