Foreign Direct Investment in China Soars

(2001/07/18)

China saw an accelerating influx of foreign direct investment (FDI) during the first half of this year, which totaled 20.69 billion U.S. dollars.

The figure represents an increase of 20.5 percent over the same period of last year, Ye Zhen, spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said at a press conference held by the Information Office of the State council Tuesday.

Ye said that the Chinese government approved 11,973 new projects of foreign investment during the January-June period, a year-on-year increase of 18.5 percent.

According to the NBS, the average scale of the new foreign- funded projects was 400,000 U.S. dollars larger than that of last year.

Meanwhile, foreign-funded enterprises in the coastal areas of the country have channeled the majority of their additional investment to such areas as telecommunications and high-tech products.

NBS statistics showed that the contract value of FDI reached 33. 4 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of the year, up 38.2 percent from the same period last year.

These figures well indicate that a new round of foreign investment in China will begin soon, Ye said.

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