A total of 42,435 foreign-invested enterprises were established on the Chinese mainland from January to August, increasing 14.8 percent year on year, the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.

During the period, foreign direct investment (FDI) in actual use totaled 506.58 billion yuan (about 71.22 billion U.S. dollars), which was down 12.7 percent year on year.

The actual use of FDI during the period came in at 129.03 billion yuan in the manufacturing industry, and at 366.19 billion yuan in the services industry.

The actual use of FDI in China's high-tech sectors totaled 148.28 billion yuan, with FDI in the e-commerce services, aerospace equipment manufacturing, chemical pharmaceutical manufacturing and medical instrument manufacturing sectors surging 169.2 percent, 37.5 percent, 23.2 percent and 19.2 percent.

By source, investment from Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Singapore grew 58.9 percent, 37.2 percent, 24.5 percent and 1.8 percent.