Central China City Strives to Attract MultinationalsWuhan, the largest industrial city at the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, will try harder to improve its environment for more investment from multinationals.The pledge was made by Yin Zengtao, vice mayor of Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, at a city-level meeting on opening-up Tuesday. Statistics show that the inflow of overseas capital into this central Chinese city was 1.3 billion US dollars last year alone, up 10 percent from 1999. Out of the global top 500 companies, 40 have made investments in Wuhan, with the scale of investment exceeding 3.5 billion US dollars. Another 45 have set up business offices in the city, while 60 other companies have sent business delegations to inspect Wuhan. Wuhan has more than 600 natural and social scientific research institutions with 450,000 scientific staffs, as well as 33 colleges of higher learning with 160,000 students enrolled. The city has so far approved more than 4,000 overseas-financed projects which has brought in about 9 billion US dollars of overseas investment. A great number of the overseas-backed ventures in Wuhan have added investment in the city after having made profits there. Last year alone, investment added by overseas-funded businesses reached 140 million US dollars. |
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