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April 12, 2010

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HomeCity specialsHangzhou

A magnet for foreign investors

2010 West Lake International Expo Investment Cooperation Week will kick off in Hangzhou in October. While 2009 was not a stellar year for foreign investment in China, Hangzhou was actively attracting overseas enterprises. Liu Xiaolin reports.

Hangzhou approved 554 foreign-invested enterprises last year, with a contract foreign capital of US$6.965 billion, up 11.83 percent year-on-year and up around 1.7 percent from the yearly plan.

The actual paid-in foreign capital in 2009 was US$4.014 billion, up 21 percent year on year and 7.03 percent from the yearly plan.

Officials cite three aspects of this economic achievement:

First, the city made a big improvement in attracting foreign investment, despite the sluggish investment nationwide.

Hangzhou achieved a two-digit growth in its contractual and paid-in foreign capital, reaching the provincial government goal one quarter ahead of schedule.

The city's contractual and paid-in foreign capital accounted for 43.1 percent and 39.8 percent respectively of overall provincial volume. That ratio rose 8.2 percentage points in contractual capital and 6.9 percentage points in paid-in capital from 2008.

Hangzhou ranked third in attracting foreign investment among cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, right after Shanghai and Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.

The city also stood out among 15 sub-provincial cities in foreign investment. It came in second after Shenyang, Liaoning Province, in overall contractual foreign capital and was fourth in overall paid-in foreign capital, after Dalian, Shenyang in Liaoning Province and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province.

Second, major projects played an important role in attracting foreign investment. The city made improvements in attracting foreign investment from Fortune 500 enterprises.

Last year Hangzhou introduced 288 investment projects, each with an investment of over US$10 million, including 17 with an investment of more than US$50 million each.

The city also introduced 10 projects invested by Fortune 500 enterprises, five of which settled in Hangzhou for the first time, including Jardine Matheson from Hong Kong, ABB from Germany, Wilmar International from Singapore, Bestbuy from the US and Hitachi from Japan.

Thus, the city achieved its goal of attracting 30 Fortune 500 enterprises to invest within three years.

Besides, the city continued to enhance the cooperation with transnational enterprises and built up strategic and cooperative relationships with world-renowned transnational enterprises such as Microsoft.

By the end of 2009, Hangzhou had approved the establishment of more than 10,000 foreign-invested enterprises.

Third, the city made breakthroughs in attracting foreign investment in real estate and maintained a sound development in attracting investment in its financial sector. Hangzhou launched 252 real estate investment projects to foreign investors last year. It also introduced 221 overseas-invested property projects, including 55 high-end ones with a total investment of US$2.3 billion.

Foreign investors also quickened the pace of investment in financial industry. In 2009, the city introduced three foreign financial projects, with a contractual foreign capital of US$194 million and a paid-in capital of US$141 million.

To promote investment, Hangzhou launched various fairs and exhibitions in China and abroad.

During March 22-29, 2009, the city held its first investment promotion week in Taiwan. It featured 26 events. During the week Hangzhou officials visited a number of scientific and technological parks in Taiwan, discussed projects with more than 60 Taiwan enterprises and reached 16 agreements with Taiwan businessmen.

Later came the 2009 Hangzhou-European Union Investment Week from April 20-29. Three promotions of Hangzhou's business were launched in Germany, Britain and Ireland, altogether attracting 300 foreign businesses. Mayor Cai Qi led a government delegation to Ireland, visiting more than 30 enterprises and reaching cooperation agreements with eight governmental economic and trade departments, commerce chambers and business institutions.

During last year's Investment Cooperation Week, which was held from October 24- 30, 2009, 350 major foreign investment projects were introduced; contracts for 25 projects were signed during the week. The agreements represented total investment of US$1.973 billion and contractual foreign capital of US$1.062 billion.


 

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