Domestic Fair Lures Record Number of Foreign Investors

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, April 11, 2003

Domestic Fair Lures Record Number of Foreign Investors

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Organizers of an investment and trade fair held here may not have expected the record number of guests from abroad -- more than 500 overseas companies and 1,000-plus foreign investors, as it was originally defined as domestic.

About 40 of the world's top 500 companies attended the seventh investment and trade fair for cooperation between China's east andwest, which attracted multinationals, agents and industrial associations from the United States, France, Germany and Japan.

The western Shaanxi Province capital of Xi'an alone has signed 39 contracts with foreign investors worth a contractual capital of400 million US dollars since the fair opened on Sunday.

In fact, more than 100 multinationals, including Microsoft Corporation, the United States' Coca-Cola Company and Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Corp., have invested in China's remote and vast west.

Analysts say more foreign companies will be persuaded to invest in the west, given China's launching of its western development campaign and its entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001.

"The enthusiasm of foreign companies is an indication that China is evolving from a potential market with the world's largestpopulation into the largest market in the global economy," said Chen Qingtai, deputy director of the Development Research Center under the State Council.

Chen, also a renowned economist, says that sharing the fruit from China's reform and opening-up drive is becoming a global trend.

"Multinationals can't miss the opportunities presented by the western regions, given their abundant natural resources and well-established industrial bases," said Chen Qiang, director of the Shaanxi Provincial Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

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