Investment into the Chinese mainland comes mainly from 10 Asian countries and regions, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, and this investment rose by 7.87 percent year-on-year to $68.63 billion for the first eight months of the year.

Investment from the European Union rose by 24.3 percent year-on-year to $5.44 billion, while that from the United States increased by 18.04 percent to $2.50 billion.

Ge Shunqi, deputy head of the Institute of International Economics at Nankai University in Tianjin, spoke highly of China's FDI performance compared with weak willingness to invest across borders worldwide.

He said that China's FDI structure has also improved.

"Service sectors surpassed manufacturing to attract more than half of the FDI inflow in recent years. Amid the gradual opening-up, services, including telecoms, education and tourism, will be the main driver of China's FDI inflow," Ge said.

China's outbound direct investment in non-financial sectors increased by 18.5 percent year-on-year to $56.5 billion from January to August.

Investment in the seven major economies — Hong Kong, ASEAN, the EU, Australia, the US, Russia and Japan — was $39.11 billion, up 3 percent year-on-year. But investment in Japan fell by 25 percent.

Shen said: "China's outbound investment will maintain robust growth. Perhaps it won't take too long for the size of overseas investment to outstrip FDI into China."

As for trade prospects for 2013, Shen said China's foreign trade faces mounting difficulties in view of the continued slow growth in the global economy and particularly from the recent financial turmoil in emerging economies.

"But we still believe that exports and imports will improve in the following months owing to strengthened recovery in developed economies," Shen said.