Statistics released by China's Ministry of Commerce on February 16, 2009, showed that foreign direct investment had been flowing much faster into the middle and western areas of China that the rest of the country.

Last year, foreign investment reached 7.4 billion USD in the middle part and 6.6 billion USD in the west part of China, representing growth rates of 12.8 percentage points and 56.2 percentage points higher than the average increase of the whole country.

Yao Jian, spokesman of MOC, said the area would attract more foreign invested manufacturing enterprises from the coastal cities as infrastructures and transportation improved and logistic costs reduced there. Companies in coastal areas will focus more on designing, service and financial business.

In 2008, China actually used 108.3 billion USD of foreign investment, marking an increase of 29.7% year on year. Among them, 92.4 billion USD went into non financial enterprises, increasing 23.6%; while the other 15.9 billion USD went into financial enterprises, increasing 68.4%.

The number of new foreign companies declined by 27 percent to 27,514 in 2008. Twenty-three new joint ventures were set up in the financial sector.

By People's Daily Online