Foreign direct investment (FDI) on the Chinese mainland jumped 11.3 percent year on year in the first three months of 2015, settling at 34.88 billion U.S. dollars, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) announced Thursday.

The pace slowed from the 17 percent increase registered in January-February period, however, it far exceeded the annual growth rate posted for 2014 of 1.7 percent, according to China's (Xinhua) News Agency.

Service industry FDI totaled 21.59 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter, up 24.1 percent year on year. This accounted for 61.9 percent of all FDI during the period. In the service sector, financial services, distribution and transport services attracted the most investment.

Manufacturing FDI was down 3.6 percent year on year to 11.22 billion U.S. dollars during the period. It accounted for 32.2 percent of the total FDI.

Along with the FDI surge, the number of newly registered foreign-funded companies increased 22.4 percent in the first three months of the year, totaling 5,861, the data showed.

China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), Republic of Korea, China's Taiwan district, Singapore, Japan, the U.S., Germany, Britain, France and Saudi Arabia were the top ten contributors during the period.

Thursday's data also showed outbound direct investment (ODI) by non-financial firms surged 29.6 percent to 25.79 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter.

China's overall ODI has accumulated to 672.1 billion U.S. dollars by the end of March this year.

China has become a net capital exporter for the first time, with ODI outnumbering capital inflows in 2014.