By the end of 2004, China had approved 302 foreign-funded companies engaged in commerce, according to a report on commercial and logistics industry released Tuesday.

These companies, backed by 4.54 billion US dollars of foreign investment, built 3,903 stores and supermarkets in China, said the report, jointly released by the Ministry of Commerce and the State Council Development and Research Center.

In 2004, these companies registered sales volume of 240 billion yuan, accounting for 4.5 percent of the total social retail sales in China.

In addition, the government also approved four companies engaged in oil sales and ten other ones engaged in auto and parts sales. These companies built 1,451 gas stations and 12 stores of auto and parts.

The report said most of these companies keep their focus in large and medium-sized cities in the eastern part of the country, which enjoy higher income level and higher consumption capacity.

Statistics shows that 80 percent of commercial projects launched by foreign-funded companies are located in large cities in the eastern part of the country.

The foreign-funded commercial companies prefer to build large- scale supermarkets in China, said the report, citing that foreign- funded supermarkets have accounted for 23 percent of total market share in some big cities.

In these stores, 95 percent of the commodities sold were produced domestically. In 2003, the Wal-Mart purchased 15 billion US dollars-worth Chinese commodities for its global market.