Mexico City, Mexico - Mexico received $19.44 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) last year, an increase of 9.7 percent over 2010, the economy ministry said on Monday.

The US accounted for 55 percent of the figure, and Spain contributed 15 percent, with the remainder coming from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, and other countries.

Last year’s results brought Mexico’s total FDI for the 2007-2011 period to $113.8 billion, the ministry stated.

Just over 44 percent of last year’s FDI went into manufacturing, while finance and insurance took 18 percent, 9.5 percent was channeled into the retail sector and 5.7 percent flowed to mass media.

According to the economy ministry, more than 41 percent of the 2011 FDI was in the form of “new investments” and 39.3 percent consisted of re-invested profits.

Mexico took in nearly 49 percent more FDI in the fourth quarter of 2011 than in the same period of the previous year.

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3.9 percent last year, Mexico’s state-run National Institute of Statistics and Geography reported last Thursday.

Mexico, Latin America’s second-biggest economy, saw its GDP expand by 5.5 percent in 2010 over the previous year, when the country was just beginning to emerge from its worst slump since the 1930s.