FDI in China climbed 15.21 per cent to USD 8.46 billion in April, down from March growth of 32.9 per cent, Yao Jian, the spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), told the media here today.

While March saw 2,538 new foreign-invested companies being approved to operate in China, 2,215 foreign-invested companies were approved last month, up 8.21 per cent from the same period in 2010.

China has approved 8,152 new foreign-invested companies over the past four months, a rise of 8.61 per cent year-on-year.

Also China's outbound direct investments hit USD 13.4 billion during the first four months of 2011, up 17.5 per cent year-on-year, according to Yao.

This brought China's cumulative outbound non-financial direct investments to USD 272.2 billion as of the end of April, Yao said.

About USD 4.2 billion or 31.3 per cent of China's total outbound direct investments over the past four months, were channelled into company mergers, he said.

China's overseas contracted projects brought in USD 24.88 billion  in revenues during the same period, up 7.8 per cent year-on-year, according to Yao.

The value of new contracts stood at USD 43.66 billion, up 19.2 percent from a year earlier, Xinhua news agency quoted Yao as saying.

About 775,000 Chinese labourers were stationed overseas by the end of April this year, nearly 22,000 less than in the same period last year, according to Yao.

This is partly due to recent unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, which resulted in the evacuation of thousands of Chinese nationals.