Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China expanded at the fastest pace in nearly four years in January, as investors were drawn to the services sector, data from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce show.

The Ministry announced on Monday that FDI totalled US$13.92 billion in January, growing by 29.4 percent from a year earlier.

FDI in the services industry increased much faster, growing by 45.1 percent year-on-year to US$9.18 billion, or two-thirds of January’s aggregate FDI, the Ministry said in the statement posted on the official website.

Foreign investment in the manufacturing sector totalled US$3.95 billion last month, or 28.4 percent of the total.

The robust performance in January reversed the sluggish trend seen in 2014, when FDI into China expanded by 1.7 percent for the whole year.

In a press conference, Shen Danyang, the Ministry’s spokesperson, declined to say if China would remain the world’s top destination for FDI in 2015.

“We are confident that China will remain among the highest [destinations] of FDI in the world,” he said.

According to the Ministry’s data, China’s outbound direct investment surged by 40.6 percent year-on-year to US$10.2 billion in January. Hong Kong and the Netherlands were the top two destinations for Chinese investment last month.