Investment promotion officials from Britain, Germany, the European, Vietnam, Chile, Cuba, 11 Arab countries, 15 African countries, as well as Hong Kong and Macao will hold 11 seminars to explain their investment environments and policies to Chinese investors at the fair, said Ma Xiuhong, assistant minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC), and deputy director of the organizing committee of the CITF.

Ma said those seminars will provide an opportunity for Chinese officials and entrepreneurs to learn about overseas investment and to talk business of cooperation.

As the world economy is slowing down and China is to enter the World Trade Organization very soon, China is encouraging its entrepreneurs to invest abroad while the country is wooing overseas investment, said the assistant minister.

"Those seminars show that the Chinese government encourages its enterprises to invest abroad and conduct cooperation with overseas partners in joint ventures and other forms," Ma said in an interview with Xinhua.

Official figures show that China's investment abroad surpassed US$600 million for two consecutive years in 1999 and 2000. By the end of 2000, the number of government-approved Chinese-invested companies abroad reached 6,296, involving a contractual investment volume of US$11.2 billion, among which Chinese investment added up to US$7.6 billion.

Ma said overseas officials and businessmen are very enthusiastic about the coming fair, and a total of 155 overseas delegations have registered to come.

(People's Daily 09/06/2001)