Overseas investment to Northeast China, the country's traditional heavy industrial base, has increased rapidly since the beginning of the year.

The inflow of overseas investment to the three northeastern Chinese provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang amounted to a record high of US$3.4 billion in the first six months of the year, said Song Xiaowu, deputy head of the Office for Revitalizing the Old Industrial Base in Northeast China under the State Council.

Liaoning received US$2.24 billion of overseas investment from January to June, up 78.18 percent from the same period last year, according to Song, who made a special trip to Dalian, a port city of Liaoning Province, to attend the second China International Software and Information Service Fair held there.

Heilongjiang, also known as the country's granary, received US$482 million in overseas investment, up 25.12 percent, and Jilin, where the country's first automobile manufacturer --the First Automobile Works (FAW) Factory -- is located, brought in US$682 million, up by 147.3 percent.

Lu Song, a research fellow with the Development and Research Center with the Liaoning Provincial Government, said that factors such as the new round of industrial structural adjustment and upgrading in the country, the strategy of the central Chinese government to rejuvenate the area and an improved investment environment have all contributed to the region's fast growth.

China considers the revival of the northeast industrial base, also known as the country's rust-belt, as its third most important long-term strategy after the opening-up in the southeast 20 years ago and the western development policy five years ago.

After the founding of modern China in 1949, the northeast region contributed the country's first steel, machine tools, locomotives and planes.

Many of the traditional industrial companies, however, have become less competitive and some have been losing money over the past 20 years, as China has shifted from a planned economy towards its reform and opening-up policies.

(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2004)