Foreign enterprises in China exceed 570,000

 

Chinanews, Beijing, Nov. 7 - At the Tenth Business Weekly CEO Annual Forum concluded last Sunday, Vice Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong said that since China carried out the opening-up policy, a total of 570,000 foreign-funded enterprises had come to China and their investment had exceeded 665 billion US dollars.

 

She said that these foreign enterprises came from over 200 countries and regions. By the end of September this year, they had established more than 800 development and research (D&R) centers in China. 480 of the top global 500 multinational companies had made investment in China. An increased amount of the investment was put in the high-tech sector. In future, China’s foreign investment policy will focus on streamlining foreign enterprises' investment industrial structure in China.

 

The vice minister said that foreign investment had played a very important role in Chinese economy. In 2005, the industrial added-value of foreign-invested enterprises increased to 11.9 trillion yuan, accounting for 29% of China's total industrial added-value volume. Import and export turnover of foreign enterprises hit 831.7 billion US dollars in 2005, accounting for 58.5% of the gross import and export trade volume in China and the tax revenue generated by foreign companies reached 634.9 billion US dollars, accounting for 21% of China's total tax revenue that year.

 

By the end of 2005, the number of Chinese directly employed by foreign enterprises reached 25 million, accounting for nearly 11% of the total employment in Chinese urban and rural areas.