Trade fair attracts deals worth $9.8b in just one day

The 16th China International Fair for Investment and Trade in Xiamen, Fujian province, had a successful opening day on Saturday, with 40 major agreements signed.

The projects were joint initiatives between a team of government and business representatives from Fujian. Of the projects, 39 received overseas investment and one is an agreement on cooperation.

The total investment to be poured into the 39 projects will be about $9.78 billion, of which at least $3.65 billion will be from overseas investors.

About 60 percent of all the projects will on average each receive a total investment of more than $100 million.

Longyan, also in Fujian, has signed more than 19 contracts during the fair.

Prior to and during the fair, Longyan promoted 55 key projects via the fair's website and other promotional channels. The projects are mainly in manufacturing, rare earths, environmental protection and energy.

On Saturday, Longyan signed agreements on 19 projects with a total investment of $736 million, a sum equal to the amount of money the government invested in projects last year.

It is estimated that those projects will attract at least $296 million of foreign investment in the future.

Of the 19 projects, 15 are major projects, each with a total investment of more than $10 million. The largest project is one in Changting county, with a total investment of $190 million.

This year, Fujian drew overseas investors not only from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao but also from Japan, Thailand, South Korea, the United States and Germany.

The province is aiming to get overseas investments into upstream and downstream of industry chains, and focuses on modern service industries and high-tech industries, to help update the province's industry structure.

Xiang'an district of Xiamen made 24 big deals at the fair. Many of the investors are major international companies and industry leaders.

Eight projects that received overseas investment will share a total of $1.3 billion. The remaining 16 projects received Chinese investment, and are estimated to have attracted 30 billion yuan ($4.7 billion).

All the projects are in the fields of advanced manufacturing and high-end service industries, such as energy-saving equipment manufacturing, high-end hospitality and sports, which shows Xiang'an's determination to develop those sectors.

Qingliu county of Sanming city also made two investment agreements.

liuzhihua@chinadaily.com.cn