The year-on-year growth of foreign direct investment (FDI), one of the driving forces of the economy, fell for the third straight month in December, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said yesterday.

FDI for the whole of last year, however, grew 23.58 percent to $92.4 billion, thanks to the robust growth in the first three quarters. In comparison, actually used FDI in 2007 grew 13.59 percent to $74.8 billion.

The MOC, which held a press conference yesterday, did not release the contractual FDI figures for last year.