Foreign investors paid 90 billion yuan (US$11.25 billion) in taxes last year a rise of 30 percent over the previous year, it was announced over the weekend.

 

This compares to zero growth in 2004, according to the report on tax payment by foreign-invested companies, China News Service reported.

 

FAW-VW Automobile Co, a joint venture between First Automotive Works of Changchun, Jilin Province, and Volkswagen of Germany, tops the list, followed by Guangzhou Honda Automobile Co.

 

Of the top 100, 57 foreign-invested manufacturing enterprises are listed and contributed more than 50 billion yuan (US$6.25 billion) to the State coffers last year.

 

In the list of the top 500 taxpayers among Chinese companies, Daqing Oilfield, PetroChina and Bank of China are the top three.

 

There are 170 resource-based enterprises and 225 tobacco and power companies in the list, which turned in tax of 556.6 billion yuan (US$70 billion) 88 percent of tax payments by the country's top 500 enterprises.

 

(China Daily September 4, 2006)