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Fujian Offers New Opportunities for Overseas Investors
East China's Fujian Province has outlined an economic and social development plan for the 10th Five Year Plan period (2001-2005), which officials said will create a better environment and new opportunities for overseas investment.
"Opening to the outside world will remain a major engine of economic growth for Fujian in the next five years," said Yang Yisheng, deputy head of the provincial government's Development Research Center. "To attract more foreign investment, we must improve our hardware and software infrastructure."
The province will give priority to the expansion of its road, railway and port networks, including the building of expressways that will connect its nine major cities and link it with the Yangtze and Zhujiang river deltas and the vast interior land.
Fujian plans to spend 7.9 billion yuan in the next five years to raise its rate of urbanization to 42 percent. It aims to build the provincial capital Fuzhou, along with Xiamen and Quanzhou into major cities of regional influence, surrounded by a cluster of smaller cities and towns.
To improve its software environment for overseas investment and ready itself for the country's expected entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the province last year started a comprehensive review of its foreign trade laws and regulations.
The province will be more flexible in its business operations; for example, it will use the Internet to invite certain projects involving petrochemicals, machinery, electronics, port, wharf and railway, said Wu Kaiwen, an official with the Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation of the provincial government.
The province will encourage multinationals to engage in mergers and acquisitions in Fujian, set up offices and factories there and make Fujian businesses part of their manufacture or sales branches, the official said.
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