BEIJING, Dec. 11 -- Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland rose 1.9 percent year on year to 64.9 billion yuan (10.4 billion U.S. dollars) in November, the Ministry of Commerce said Friday.

The growth slowed from a 4.2-percent rise in October.

For the first 11 months, FDI, which excludes investment in the financial sector, stood at 704.3 billion yuan, up 7.9 percent from the same period last year.

Foreign investment in the service industry rose 18.8 percent, with the high-tech service sector seeing a jump of 51.7 percent to 7.23 billion U.S. dollars.

High-tech manufacturing attracted 8.54 billion U.S. dollars of foreign investment during the January-November period, up 11.7 percent and accounting for 23.8 percent of total foreign investment in manufacturing.

Investment from the ASEAN, European Union, Hong Kong, and Macao continued to grow fast, while that from Japan, the United States and Taiwan dropped significantly.

The ministry also noted that more foreign firms invested in China through mergers and acquisitions, which accounted for 14.7 percent of the total FDI in January-October, up from 5.6 percent in the same period last year.