Foreign investors are choosing to set up their own enterprises rather than cooperating with a Chinese partner.

Jiangsu Province approved the establishment of 628 solely foreign invested enterprises during the January-September period this year, an annual rise of 11 percent, according to the Jiangsu Statistics Bureau.

Solely foreign-funded enterprises have attracted a contractual investment of 2.45 billion US dollars, 1.5 times that of Sino- foreign joint ventures. Foreign funded enterprises invested 2.05 billion US dollars during the nine months, nearly 200 million US dollars more than Sino-foreign joint ventures.

Compared with the same period last year, foreign funded enterprises increased their investment by 7.9 percent while foreign investment from Sino-foreign joint ventures decreased by 29 percent.

Experts say that foreigners who set up their own enterprises show their confidence in investing in the province.

Jiangsu Province is the second province after Guangdong in terms of the volume of foreign investment. To date the province has approved 38,000 foreign-funded enterprises, involving contractual foreign investment of 72.8 billion US dollars with 34 billion US dollars actually used. (Xinhua)