The Ministry of Commerce released data from the first five months of 2007 showing that US$25.26 billion was used in the period to support 15,072 newly established foreign investment enterprises. The dollar amount was a 10% increase over 2006, although the actual number of new ventures dropped 4%.

The numbers for the month of May show the same pattern. There was US$4.9 billion in foreign capital invested, an increase of 8.7%, though the number of new ventures fell almost 10% to 2,723.

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During the five-month period, the top ten countries or areas (in terms of dollar amount) making investments were: Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the British Virgin Islands, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United States, the Cayman Islands, Samoa, China's Taiwan Province and Mauritius.

These 10 countries contributed 86% of all the money put into new Chinese ventures.

These figures show that there is some distortion in the numbers because many Chinese companies are established in Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands for tax purposes. Because of this, some percentage of the money is coming from domestic sources in China.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, the industries receiving the most money were manufacturing (US$6.035 billion), real estate (US$13.461 billion), and rental and business services (US$1.344 billion).

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