China should not count on foreign direct investment (FDI) as a pillar of its economic development, experts warned Tuesday, as the country's actualized FDI in November fell for the sixth month in a row compared to a year earlier.

According to statistics released Tuesday by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), FDI into China reached $8.29 billion last month, a decline of 5.4 percent from a year earlier.

Between January and November this year, the country's actualized FDI dropped by 3.6 percent year-on-year to $100.02 billion, MOFCOM spokesman Shen Danyang said at a press conference in Beijing.

"Next year, the general FDI inflow situation will still be grim as global investment growth remains weak," Shen said

Li Jian, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under MOFCOM, told the Global Times that as well as the debt crisis that Europe is grappling with, "the authorities' push to cool down the real estate industry is another reason for the declining FDI inflow."

One example is that MB Asia Real Estate Fund, run by US private equity firm Blackstone Group LP, sold its 40 percent stake in a real estate joint venture in Guangdong Province to Chinese property developer Evergrande Real Estate Group earlier this year.

Spokesman Shen also said that there has been speculation in recent years that China's investment environment would deteriorate. "(These rumors) have impacted the confidence of some investors," said Shen, noting that rising production costs are also a factor behind the decreasing FDI inflow.

"Investment takes economic interests as its top priority. So wherever there is a place providing cheaper costs for production, it will go there, which is the reason why some companies choose to relocate from China to Vietnam or Cambodia to establish factories," Feng Pengcheng, a research director with the Institute of International Economy at the University of International Business and Economics, told the Global Times Tuesday.

"We should not count on FDI as a pillar of our economic development. It is time for us to boost domestic consumption," said Feng.