XIAMEN, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) - China' s investment environment has been improving, and those foreign firms issuing complaints were just sharing growing pains brought on by the country' s economic restructuring, top officials and economists have said.

"The overall investment environment in China has been improving since the global financial crisis," said Commerce Minister Chen Deming at the ongoing 2nd World Investment Forum (WIF) in Xiamen City in southeast China's Fujian Province.

Though repeating complaints about China' s "worsening" investment climate, overseas investors still cannot help but to flock to China to set up businesses.

During the first seven months, China's FDI increased 20.65 percent year on year to 58.35 billion U.S. dollars, according to the ministry' s latest statistics.

Meanwhile, some 14,459 foreign-invested companies were established in China in the first seven months of 2010, up 17.9 percent year on year.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) this year is set to "surpass 100 billion U.S. dollars," compared with 90 billion dollars last year, an official with the ministry predicted on Sunday.

"It' s not surprising to witness such inconsistency" and the complaints mean that foreign businesses are attaching more importance to the Chinese market, which is becoming the most important market with the strongest purchasing power in the world, said Huang Zhilong, an expert with the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

Chen Deming said late Tuesday at the forum that it is "understandable" that foreign companies have mixed feelings about investing in China.

Foreign companies, on the one hand, saw in China great industrial growth in the past 30 years since the country' s opening up, its quality of labor resources and the relatively good infrastructure, said Chen.

On the other hand, they also felt the pressure brought on by the increasing competitiveness of China' s growing state-owned and private businesses, he added.

According to Chen, China will continue seeing large influxes of foreign investment in the next few years despite uncertainties in the global economic recovery.

"Currently, many countries and organizations have rated China as the most appealing destination for investment, which probably would not be changed for a few years," said the minister.