South China's Guangdong Reports Double-Digit Growth in Overseas InvestmentGuangdong Province, China's forerunner of reform and open-up drive, approved more overseas invested projects with the contractual investment involving 8.51 billion US dollars in the first six months of the year, up 72.3 percent from the same period last year.According to local sources, from January to June, the volume of actual inflow of overseas investment into this southern Chinese province was 6.4 billion US dollars, up 12.6 percent. Among all, the service trade has become a focus of overseas investment. The sector attracted 1.2 billion US dollars of foreign direct investment in the first six months of the year, up 35.8 percent. About 40 percent of the existing overseas-financed businesses in Guangdong added investments, said the local sources. Due to the adverse impact of a sluggish world economy, Guangdong, also China's leading export player, only did 81.54 billion US dollars worth of foreign trading, up 4 percent. Experts made up 43 billion US dollars, up 0.6 percent. Export of high-tech commodities has increased the fastest. From January to June, Guangdong exported 9.69 billion US dollars worth of high-tech commodities, up 34.9 percent or accounting for 22.4 percent of the province's total exports. Some 60 percent of the province's exports were done by overseas- backed businesses, said the local sources. In a related case, Guangzhou, the provincial capital, had an inflow of 1.36 billion US dollars of overseas investment from January to June, up 34.7 percent from the same period last year. During the same period, the city also approved 289 new overseas- financed businesses with a total investment of 1.024 billion US dollars, up 4.33 percent. |
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