The latest statistics show that Suzhou, a scenic city in east China's Jiangsu Province, had accepted a contractual volume of US$40.09 billionin foreign investment funds by the end of July.

Statistics show that the city has established 7,950 foreign- funded enterprises, with the used amount of foreign investment totaling 22.68 billion US dollars. The city's first foreign- funded enterprise was set up in 1984.

Suzhou approved 770 foreign-funded enterprises, involving 5.24 billion US dollars in contractual terms, in the January-July period this year, ranking the first among major Chinese cities.

As a historical and cultural city, Suzhou attracts tens of thousands of overseas visitors annually, and has become an investment destination of foreign investors.

To date, 80 of the world's top 500 industrial enterprises have invested in the city.

In recent years, five state-level and 10 provincial-level development zones in the city have attracted more than 3,000 foreign-funded enterprises, with a total contractual investment volume of 26.3 billion US dollars, accounting for 38 percent of the city's total foreign-funded enterprises and 65 percent of the city's total amount of contractual foreign investment.

(People's Daily 08/20/2001)