The largest port city in north China used a total of 2.5 billion US dollars of foreign funds in 1999.

The amount of contractual foreign investment dropped slightly from the previous year due to negative influences of the Asian financial crisis, but the amount of foreign funds actually used by the city remained unchanged, according to the city's committee of foreign trade and economic cooperation.

Latest statistics show that Tianjin actually used 2.32 billion US dollars of foreign investment in the first 11 months of last year, up 4.5 percent on a yearly basis.

The city approved 540 foreign-funded enterprises in 1999, swelling the number of foreign-funded enterprises so far established to 12,000, involving a total contractual foreign funds of 25 billion US dollars.

In the first eleven months of last year, the city imported and exported 11.48 billion US dollars of goods, up more than 20 percent.