South China Province Reports Surge in Overseas Investments
GUANGZHOU, January 19 (Xinhua) -- South China's Guangdong Province, a pioneer in China's opening up drive, reported 15.8 billion U.S. dollars of contractual overseas investment in 2001, up 42.56 percent on the previous year, according to sources with provincial trade and economic cooperation authorities.Overseas investment in real terms rose 8.1 percent to 15.76 billion U.S. dollars in the same period. Of this, overseas direct investment rose 6. 01 percent to a record high of 13 billion U.S. dollars.
Zhao Yufang, deputy director of Guangdong Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Department, said that a number of heavy-weight foreign investment contracts were signed last year, including 375 with contractual values of above 10 million U.S. dollars each.
So far, about 250 of the Fortune top 500 performing corporations have made investments in Guangdong. Among them, oil giant Shell has signed agreements with its Chinese partners to jointly invest 4.05 billion U.S. dollars in a petrochemical project. Half of the investment will come from Shell.
Foreign-funded enterprises have become important contributors to local economic development. In the first 11 months of last year, foreign-funded industrial enterprises in Guangdong generated 191 billion yuan (23 billion U.S. dollars) of added value, accounting for more than half of the province's total.
Guangdong is one of China's most developed regions. Preliminary statistics show Guangdong's GDP rose 9.5 percent year-on-year to 1,055.6 billion yuan (127.18 billion U.S. dollars) in 2001, accounting for some 11 percent of the national total.
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