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Shanghai Foreign Investment Seen Topping US$4 bln This Year
Officials in Shanghai predict foreign investment deals in the city will top four billion dollars by the end of the year, the Shanghai Daily reported Monday.
Contracted foreign investment in China's largest port surged by 13.6 percent in the first seven months of the year to US$2.74 billion, with deals inked on 1,048 projects, according to Shanghai Investment Commission figures.
"With China's pending entry into the World Trade Organization and overall economic prospects, investor confidence is growing, said Xia Zhongguang, deputy chief of the commission's investment promotion department.
Meanwhile, actual foreign investment in Shanghai only climbed 3.83 percent year-on-year to US$1.1 billion in the January to May period, the paper reported without quoting more recent figures.
Shanghai attracted US$4.1 billion in foreign investment deals in 1999 and expects to top that figure this year, the report said.
Foreign investment across the country has slowed dramatically since Asian economies were battered by the regional financial crisis in 1998.
However, many foreign firms are now reassessing their investment strategies in the world's largest developing economy in the light of China's imminent accession to the WTO, expected by the end of this year or in early 2001.
Across the country, planned foreign direct investment, which gives an indication of future investment flows, rose 24 percent to US$27.6 billion in the first seven months compared with the same period last year, the Ministry of Foreign Trade said.
"Planned foreign investment has picked up abruptly as foreign investors expect China to liberalize its service sector after entry into the World Trade Organization," said Robert Subbaraman, an economist with Lehman Brothers in Tokyo.
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