Good Morning!

I am delighted to have an opportunity to attend the Round-table Meeting for WAIPA Members. Firstly, I would like on behalf of the Ministry of Commerce of PRC and myself to extend my warm welcome to delegates of Chinese investment promotion institution and 22 foreign investment promotion institutions from Sweden, Belgium, Japan, Azerbaijan, Mauritius, Peru and Mexico etc. Meanwhile, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the arduous efforts of experts, scholars and officials of WAIPA and UNCTAD. The Round-table meeting for WAIPA members is not only an important meeting during the 9th China International Fair for Trade and Investment, but also another important activity held by the Ministry of Commerce and WAIPA to further push forward cooperation among investment promotion institutions of the countries.

Now, I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to introduce the state of investment attraction and overseas investment in China to you.

It is well-known that the 26 years of China's open-up were years to actively attract foreign investment. Chinese government took foreign investment attraction as the major content of open-up and earnestly studied the development tendency of global transnational direct investment, timely sized the opportunity of adjustment of world economic structure, combined foreign investment attraction with the target of Chinese economic development, drafted positive, reasonable and effective policies and measures on foreign investment attraction, improved the level of attracting foreign investment and optimized the structure and quality of foreign investment. By the end of May 2005, China totally approved 525378 foreign investment enterprises with agreed investment of US$1.1615 trillion and actual use of foreign investment of US$584.4 billion, covering areas of manufacture, service industry, agriculture and infrastructure construction. Now, over 190 countries and regions came to China for investment and 450 of World's Top 500 Enterprises invested in China, 30 of them set up headquarters and more than 600 R&D centers here.

While do a better job of foreign investment attraction, China also strongly push forward the development of foreign trade and economic cooperation, positively led and promoted enterprises to “Go global” and made pleasant achievements. By the end of 2004, total non-financial overseas investment amounted to US$36.8 billion, turnover of overseas project contracting were US$114 billion with agreed investment of US$156.3 billion, turnover of overseas labor service cooperation reached US$30.8 billion with agreed investment of US$36.1 billion, and total 319 labors were dispatched. In the first 5 months in 2005, total non-financial overseas direct investment were US$1.8 billion, turnover of overseas project contracting were US$6.6 billion and value of newly signed contracts hit US$9.1 billion, up by 10% and 45% respectively. And turnover of overseas labor service cooperation were US$1.6 billion with a value of newly signed contracts of US$1.5 billion, up by 28%.

Open-up is a long-term basic state policy of the Chinese government. After many years’ efforts, the all-dimensional, multi-layered and wide-ranging open-up pattern has formed. In the future, China will further expand the open-up according to the requirement of self-development and commitment to not only open gradually the domestic market and introduce foreign investment, but also actively enter into international market to push forward further development of world economy.

Ladies, Gentlemen and Friends!

With the fast growth of global economy, FDI turned a new round of increase, during the period, it is of much importance to hold a symposium with a theme of cooperation among investment promotion institutions, best operation mode and core mission Under the background of expedited economic globalization, countries enhanced to attract foreign investment. Developed and developing countries were actively implementing more powerful measures on attraction of FDI. The Symposium invited successful investment promotion institutions of WAIPA members to introduce their experiences. I believe that through mutual efforts of attendants, the Meeting will certainly further the level of investment promotion, promote investment cooperation in all countries and regions worldwide to realize further development.

Wish the Round-Table Meeting a great Success!

(Source: Network Center of MOFCOM)