According to Chong Quan, spokesperson with Ministry of Commerce, the direct investment by foreign businessmen in China in 2004 took on the following three characteristics: the industrial structure of foreign investment got further optimized, the total amount of foreign investment of the old industrial base in northeast China increased in magnitude, and the actual investment of some major foreign investors in China witnessed a steady growth.

As Chong revealed, the absorption of foreign investment by industries involving hi-tech ones such as the equipment manufacturing, electromechanical and apparatuses manufacturing maintained a high rate of growth. The number of research and development centers and regional headquarters funded by foreign investment increased rapidly. A total of 700 odds research and development centers have been set up through various forms of foreign investment in terms of electronic and telecommunication equipment manufacturing, communication and transportation equipment manufacturing, production of medicine as well as chemical raw material and chemicals as well. The regional headquarters in Chinese mainland established by transnational corporations have exceeded 30. The scale of newly added foreign investment in such fields as steel, cement and electrolytic aluminum has been put under an effective control.

The old industrial base in northeast China has witnessed a large amount of foreign investment pouring into the region, with the east to continue to maintain the leading position, central region to develop vigorously and the west still to see a little bit sluggish. Therefore, it still sees a distinctive difference between the three regions. The number of newly established enterprises by foreign investment in the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning increased by nine percent from last year, the contracted value of foreign investment increased by 40 percent from last year and the actually used value of foreign investment increased by 78 percent from last year.

Since last year, the number of newly added enterprises by foreign investment, contracted foreign capital and the actual investment value in China by regions of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and ten Asian ten countries such as Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the ROK increased by six percent, 24 percent and 10 percent respectively. The number of newly added enterprises invested by former 15 EU member states, the contracted foreign capital and the actually used value of foreign investment increased respectively by 17 percent, 43 percent and eight percent as against that of last year.

According to the actual value of foreign investment, the top ten countries and regions that have the largest investment in China are Hong Kong, British Virgin Islands, the ROK, Japan, the US, Taiwan province, Cayman Islands, Singapore, Samoa and Germany and the actual investment value took up 84 percent of the nation's total utilized foreign investment.

In the year of 2004, China has newly approved totally 43,664 foreign-funded enterprises, the value of contracted foreign investment reached 153.479 billion US dollars, and the actually used amount of foreign investment topped 60.63 billion US dollars, a respective rise by 6.29 percent, 33.3 percent and 13.32 percent over that of last year.

By the end of 2004, the accumulated number of foreign-funded enterprises approved by China has reached 508,941, the contracted foreign investment topped nearly 1.1 trillion US dollars, and the actually used value of foreign investment amounted to 562.101 US dollars.

By People's Daily Online