ABSTRACT
Introduction Besides being among the first economies to invest in China, the US and the European Union are also China's top two trade partners. Although both the ratio and the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow from the US and nine European countries (UK, Germany, France, Netherland, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden and Belgium), during the period 1996 to JUDe 2009, were less than the FDI from Asian economies (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) - which covers nearly a quarter of the total FDI inftow into China - the US and the European Union are still among the top four FDI source economies for China. 1 Over this period they represented, on average, 7.09% and 7.79%, respectively, of the total FDI inftow into China.
