The sales income of overseas-funded enterprises in Tianjin, a coastal city in north China, surpassed 100 billion yuan (about 12.2 billion US dollars) last year, up 18.5 percent over 1998, latest statistics from the city's foreign trade and economic committee showed.

The profits of the enterprises exceeded 8 billion yuan in 1999, according to the data.

Last year, the city approved 575 overseas-funded enterprises, with contractual use of foreign investment amounting to 3.6 billion U.S. dollars. The actual use of foreign funds totaled 2.5 billion dollars.

These enterprises mainly cover electronics, machine-building, information and hi-tech sectors.

Vice Mayor Wang Shuzu said that in 1999, the output value, profits and export volume of the overseas-funded enterprises accounted for 42 percent, 52 percent and 70 percent of the city's total respectively.

Tianjin has so far approved 12,000 overseas-funded enterprises, and contractual use of foreign funds stood at 25 billion dollars.

The city has issued new measures to attract foreign funds this year in order to open further to the outside world.