The Guangming Daily (July 17) said data for the first half of this year released by China's Ministry of Commerce on July 16, showed that Chinese domestic investors made non-financial direct investments in 159 countries and regions around the world, for a total investment of 362.14 billion yuan (US$51.79 billion), a decrease of 0.7 per cent compared to the same period in 2019. Meanwhile Investment in countries along the “Belt and Road” increased in the first half of this year. Non-financial direct investment in countries along the “Belt and Road” was US$8.12 billion, up 19.4 per cent year over year. Among them, investment in ASEAN was US$6.23 billion, a year over year increase of 53.1 per cent. Total foreign contracted projects were 425.99 billion yuan (US$60.92 billion), a year over year decrease of 10.6 per cent, and the newly signed contract value was 753.82 billion yuan (US$107.81 billion), a year over year increase of 5 per cent. There were 133,000 who worked overseas on a number of labour cooperation projects, a decrease of 102,000 compared with the same period in the previous year. At the end of June, a total of 659,000 people had been dispatched overseas. Newly signed large-scale foreign projects also increased. In the first half of the year, there were 381 new contracts each having a value of more than US$50 million, for a total value of US$89.03 billion, accounting for 83.1 per cent of the total new contracts. Among them, there were 222 projects valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, an increase of 5 projects, compared with the same period of last year. The investments included leasing and business services, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, mining, and construction. Foreign investments that came from the local enterprises amounted to US$38.21 billion, a year over year increase of 12.1 per cent. Among them, 81.8 per cent came from10 provinces and cities in the eastern region for a total of US$31.26 billion. The foreign investments from the Yangtze River Economic Belt were US$17.8 billion, a year over year increase of 37.8 per cent. Guangdong, Zhejiang and Shanghai are at the forefront of foreign investment.
|
