BEIJING, May 15 (Reuters) - China drew $27.67 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first four months of the year, 21.0 percent less than in the same period in 2008, the Commerce Ministry said on Friday.
That compared with a 20.6 percent annual fall in the first quarter.
In April alone, China attracted $5.9 billion in FDI, down 22.5 percent compared with a year earlier.
That marked the seventh straight month that FDI inflows have fallen from their year-earlier levels.
The annual fall was steeper than in the previous two months. FDI inflows were down 9.5 percent in March from a year earlier and 15.8 percent in February from a year earlier.
The Ministry released the figure at a news conference.
China attracted a record $92.4 billion in non-financial FDI in 2008, an increase of 23.6 percent from 2007.
Inflows surged in the years after the country joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001, but have weakened in recent months as the global economic slowdown has hit investment flows.
China's foreign direct investment~ (in $ billion): _______2009_______ ____________________2008___________________ Apr Mar Feb Jan Dec Nov Oct Sep Aug Jul Jun May Apr 5.9 8.4 5.8 7.5 6.0 5.3 6.7 6.6 7.0 8.3 9.6 7.8 7.6
~ FDI excluding investments in the financial sector. Some of the monthly figures are calculated based on cumulative data. (Reporting by Zhou Xin and Simon Rabinovitch; editing by Ken Wills)