China Foreign Direct Investment Drops for Second-Straight Month in May

China's foreign direct investment decreased for the second straight month in May, underscoring the challenges Beijing faces in attracting foreign businesses, official data showed Thursday.

China attracted 54.67 billion yuan ($8.05 billion) in foreign direct investment last month, down 3.7% from a year earlier, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Thursday. That followed April's year-on-year decline of 4.3% in yuan terms.

Foreign direct investment dropped 0.7% in the January-May period compared with a year ago, to CNY341.08 billion.

The ministry hasn't released dollar-term figures for May.

Write to Liyan Qi at liyan.qi@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 15, 2017 03:14 ET (07:14 GMT)