GROWTH of foreign direct investment in China accelerated surprisingly in June, a rare piece of good news when the world's second-largest economy reported a slew of disappointing data.

Foreign investors channeled altogether US$14.4 billion into China last month, up 20.1 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Commerce said this morning.

The pace quickened sharply from the increase of 0.29 percent in May, and extended the growth streak to a fifth month in a row.

Commerce Ministry Spokesman Shen Danyang said China's inbound foreign investment has been relatively stable so far this year against the backdrop of shrinking global investments.

"But it is still hard to say whether China's foreign investment has fully recovered to the pre-crisis level with simply one snapshot of the encouraging FDI figure in June," Shen said.

Investors from the European Union and the United States raised their capital input in China. In the first six months, investment from the 27-member EU rose 14.7 percent to US$4 billion, while capital from American firms jumped 12.3 percent to US$1.8 billion.

China attracted a total of US$61.9 billion foreign investment in the January-June period, up 4.9 percent on an annual basis.

China's outbound direct investment surged 29 percent to US$45.6 billion in the first half, indicating Chinese investors' strong enthusiasm for globalizing their businesses, the ministry's data showed.