Foreign-funded enterprises have become a driving force behind the booming foreign trade of Shandong Province, east China, said sources with the provincial Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Department.
Statistics show that in the past five years, the province approved 9,583 foreign-funded enterprises, which registered a combined export volume of US$34 billion and an annual increase rate of over 15 percent.
Currently, exports by foreign-funded enterprises account for 47.6 percent of the provincial total.
Foreign-funded enterprises are engaged in more than 30 different fields including agriculture, machinery, electronics, meters and instruments, bio-medicine, automobile manufacturing, medical equipment, harbor construction and commerce.
Technical and high-tech products constitute the majority of the export commodities of foreign-funded enterprises. According to statistics, last year, foreign-funded enterprises in the province exported US$1.89 billion worth of electro-mechanical products, accounting for 60.4 percent of the province's total; exports of high-tech products were valued at US$520 million, or more than 80 percent of the its total.
(Eastday 08/15/2001)
