China's financial institutions received 3.501 billion yuan (about 536 million U.S. dollars) in net foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first quarter of this year, the country's foreign exchange regulator said on Monday.
The figure is higher than the 1.076 billion yuan in net FDI received in the fourth quarter last year, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).
Net overseas direct investment from China's financial institutions, including banks, insurers and securities firms, totaled 11.614 billion yuan in the first quarter, lower than the 43.39 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2015.
China's economy expanded 6.7 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2016, the slowest growth since the global financial crisis hit in early 2009.
The SAFE has been releasing data on a quarterly basis since 2012 to increase the transparency of foreign exchange statistics.
