China’s Foreign Direct Investment More Than Doubles (Update1)

(Adds economist’s comment in fourth paragraph.)

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Foreign direct investment in China more than doubled in December from a year earlier as the effects of the financial crisis fade.

Investment rose 103 percent from a year earlier to $12.1 billion, the Ministry of Commerce said at a briefing in Beijing today. That compared with a 32 percent increase in November. Investment fell 2.6 percent in all of 2009 to $90.03 billion, the government said.

Friction between the Chinese government and overseas companies such as Google Inc. and Rio Tinto Group may not be enough to temper investor enthusiasm for the world’s fastest- growing major economy. Rupert Stadler, CEO of Volkswagen AG’s Audi division, said this month that China is the best answer when seeking growth, after the nation supplanted the U.S. as the world’s No.1 auto market in 2009.

“China’s recovery means that the nation’s growth rate will lead the major economies by an even bigger margin,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong. “Thus China’s appeal -- strong economic fundamentals and the world’s most populous consumer market.”

China’s $586 billion stimulus package, record lending last year and tax breaks on consumer spending are bolstering sales and profits. The nation may overtake Japan as the world’s second-largest economy this year, according to International Monetary Fund projections.

Industry Secrets

Google, the owner of the most-used Internet search engine, said on Jan. 12 that it will end self-censorship in China after attacks on e-mail accounts of human-rights activists and may exit the nation. Separately, Chinese prosecutors are deciding whether employees of Rio Tinto, the world’s third-largest mining company, will go to trial for allegedly stealing secrets related to the steel industry.

“Most foreign investors are still more than eager to secure a share of China’s market, especially amid the financial crisis because that’s where the potential market lies and where the profits are,” said HSBC’s Qu.

VW, which sold 6.29 million cars and sport-utility vehicles worldwide last year, reported a 37 percent surge in China to 1.4 million autos, helping offset declining European deliveries. The German automaker plans to invest more than 4 billion euros ($5.8 billion) in the country by 2011, while Ford Motor Co. is spending $490 million building its third plant in the nation.

Foreign direct investment adds to the flood of cash in the financial system from record lending and the trade surplus, increasing the risk of bubbles forming in asset markets and inflation surging back. Property prices rose at the fastest pace in 18 months in December, a report yesterday showed.

Fan Gang, an academic member of the central bank’s monetary policy committee, said on Dec. 28 that “hot money,” or short- term speculative capital, is making China’s stock and property markets more volatile. Zhang Xiaoqiang, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, said on Jan. 5 that the nation may see “huge” inflows of hot money as foreign investors step up bets on gains of the Chinese currency.