Suzhou in east China's Jiangsu Province attracted 1.998 billion US dollars in registered foreign investment this January, up 19.2 percent year-on-year, according to Suzhou provincial government.

The city absorbed actual foreign investment totaling 515 million US dollars in the first month of this year, up 23.5 percent over the same month of 2004, the source said.

Of the 244 newly-approved foreign-funded projects in the city in January, some 97 projects were large ones with investments exceeding 10 million US dollars each, with accumulative contractual foreign investment totaling 1.292 billion US dollars.

Twenty-seven projects added investments exceeding 10 million US dollars each, with contractual investment totaling 1.662 billion US dollars, the source said.

The city has played an active part in helping the approved projects into construction. And a total of 57 foreign-funded projects went into operation in the first month, up 50 percent over the same month of the previous year.

A total of 7,085 foreign-funded enterprises have gone into operation in Suzhou, which reported 4.517 billion US dollars in exports this January, up 73.8 percent over the previous January.

Source: Xinhua