The Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone saw its overseas investment increase in the first quarter from the same period last year, said officials of the zone authorities.

Statistics show that the total investment by newly approved enterprises in the zone hit 736 million US dollars during the first three months, up nearly 14 times from the same period last year. Of the total, overseas investment in contracts accounted for673 million US dollars. The actual use of overseas investment reached 7.7 million US dollars in the period, up 92.53 percent, according to the statistics.

Beijing's sole state-level zone of the kind saw 43 new enterprises starting production in the period and approved four investment programs each having an investment over 10 million US dollars.

In the first quarter, the zone's gross output was worth 2.19 billion yuan (264 million US dollars), up 39 percent from a year earlier.

Founded in the southeastern suburb of Beijing in 1992, the zone attracted a total of 1,394 enterprises by the end of March, with accumulative investment of about 6.3 billion US dollars, including 350 Sino-overseas joint ventures and overseas-funded enterprises with their investment adding up to 4.3 billion US dollars.