The Pudong New Area, an emerging financial and trade zone set up in 1990 in China's leading industrial center of Shanghai, plans to introduce about 1.2 billion US dollars of investment from overseas this year.

Sources with the area's administration committee said that overseas capital will be spent on 470 projects, mainly in high-tech industries, the service sector, and infrastructure construction.

Overseas investors are especially encouraged to engage in high-tech industries in the Zhangjiang High-Tech Industrial Park, the Waigaoqiao Bonded Zone, the Jinqiao Export-Oriented Processing Zone, and the Sunqiao Agricultural Development Zone in Pudong, thesources said.

Pudong added 470 overseas-funded enterprises last year, bringing the area's total number of overseas-funded businesses to 5,942, which have introduced 11.5 billion US dollars of contractual overseas investment.

Of the world's top 500 companies, 98 have invested in the area.