China Sees Rising Foreign InvestmentChina approved 6,060 foreign investment projects in the first four months of the year, involving a total of US$14.64 billion of contracted investment, an official said in Shanghai Thursday.The number of the projects and foreign investment were 23 percent and 28.2 percent higher respectively over those of the same period last year, according to Liu Zuozhang, deputy director of the foreign investment bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. "This shows that foreign investors are fully optimistic regarding China's investment environment, which will conform more with international practices after the country joins the World Trade Organization (WTO)," Liu said at a press conference at the China Fair for International Investment and Trade. Statistics show that in the first four months of the year, countries in Asia, the European Union and North America increased their investment in China. Japan's first-quarter investment in China rose 47.8 per cent over the same period last year, while investment from the Republic of Korea went up 21 per cent. With China's WTO entry imminent, the country has unveiled a host of incentives aimed at encouraging more foreign investment, the official said. By the end of April, China had approved a total of 34,800 foreign ventures, involving a contracted foreign investment of US$628.7 billion and actual foreign investment of US$317.5 billion. |
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