Tianjin, one of China's four municipalities and the leading port city in northern China, has absorbed 3.2 billion U.S. dollars of investment from abroad last year, a quarter more than the amount in the previous year.
The municipal government approved 618 foreign-funded enterprises last year, bringing the total number of foreign-fundedfirms in Tianjin to 14,233, which involved a total contractual value of 36 billion U.S. dollars.
As a pillar in the city's economy, foreign-funded enterprises secured an output value of 131.5 billion yuan in 2001, up 8.1 percent over the previous year. The industrial output value totaled 130.7 billion yuan, accounting for 46 percent of the city's total, said Zhang Yunnian, director of the municipal economic and trade commission.
They paid 10.9 billion yuan in tax last year, up by 10.7 percent and exported 7.1 billion U.S. dollar-worth of goods, up by 11.5 percent. The export of foreign-funded enterprises now makes up 75 percent of the city's total export, Zhang said.
(Xinhua News Agency February 9, 2002)
