BEIJING -- Foreign direct investment into China dropped 6.8 percent year-on-year to $8.43 billion, the Ministry of Commerce said Friday.

This is the fourth consecutive monthly drop of the country's FDI inflow. The figure brought the total FDI inflow for the first nine months of the year to $83.42 billion, down 3.8 percent year-on-year, said ministry spokesman Shen Danyang.

"Investment from developed economies including the European Union, the US and Japan saw both rises and drops, but the drops have narrowed in general," Shen said.

In the first nine months, investment from the US dropped 0.63 percent year-on-year to $2.37 billion, down from a 2.9-percent drop in the January-August period.

Investment from the EU dropped 6.3 percent year-on-year to $4.83 billion. Investment from Japan surged 17 percent from a year earlier to $5.62 billion, he said.