The figure also exceeded the US$7.373 billion in contractual overseas investment for 2001, according to statistics from the Shanghai Municipal Overseas Investment Work Committee.

A marked increase was reported in overseas investment flowing to Shanghai's tertiary industry which covers commerce and trade, logistics, medical services, education, cinemas and real estate.

The committee said Shanghai approved 1,045 overseas-funded firms in the tertiary sector, involving a total of US$2.776 billion in contractual foreign investment in the January-September period. The figures represented increases of 31.28 percent and 85.31 percent respectively over the same period of last year.

The number of overseas-funded enterprises in the tertiary sector accounted for 46.55 percent of the municipality's total overseas-funded enterprises approved in the nine-month period and the foreign investment involved made up 34.57 percent of the total.

During the period, the city of Shanghai approved 170 overseas-funded programs each involving an investment of more than 10 million US dollars.

The Virgin Islands, Hong Kong and Japan were the top three overseas investors pouring 1.532 billion, 1.276 billion and 1.097 billion US dollars respectively in contractual volume into Shanghai in the first nine months.

Shanghai had approved a total of 26,900 overseas-funded firms by the end of September, involving a total contractual investment of US$60.628 billion.

Meanwhile, China had approved more than 410,000 overseas-funded enterprises by the end of August this year. Contractual overseas investment totaled 807.598 billion US dollars and the amount used was 429.665 billion US dollars, according to the latest statistics provided by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

(Xinhua News Agency October 9, 2002)