China’s financial services and fintech foreign direct investment (FDI) heyday may be behind it. Capital expenditure (capex) into both sectors, which reached a high of $4.7tn in 2020, fell 81% to $864bn, as of October 2021, according to FT-owned greenfield data monitor fDi Markets. Similarly, FDI-created jobs fell by 70%, to 1978.
The number of projects created in the country through FDI fell by 14% in the first 10 months of 2021, making it the second year of decline. There were 21 projects for the full year 2020, a 58% decrease in project numbers from 2019.
