Xi'an, the capital city of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, has become one of the top destinations for investors from other parts of the country and abroad.

This was exemplified by a contracts-signing ceremony on Saturday between the Xi'an International Trade & Logistics Park and investors. The agreements will kick-start a series of projects in the park, including a European city, a photovoltaic cell plant, an optoelectronics plant, a mobile cloud-computing project and a hospital.

According to Qiang Xiao'an, director of the administrative committee of the Xi'an International Trade & Logistics Park, a total of 27 investment agreements were signed during this year's Investment and Trade Forum for Cooperation between East and West China, involving a cumulative investment of 81.525 billion yuan ($13 billion).

Twelve of the 27 projects involved investment from overseas, totaling $2.675 billion. Qiang said investors are mainly from the United States, France, Japan and Indonesia, as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan regions.

Han Song, vice-mayor of Xi'an and secretary of the Party work committee of the Xi'an International Trade & Logistics Park, attended the signing ceremony, saying that these projects will be of landmark significance to the development of this park and the Xi'an Free Trade Zone, which is part of the park.

Han said the projects, such as the ASEAN industrial park, the European city, the Japanese industrial park and the Taiwan industrial park, will help Xi'an integrate into the global economy, sharpen its competitiveness and attract more international industries to the city. The vice-may also hoped that with these projects, the Xi'an free trade zone and the park will play a greater role in promoting the regional economic development in northwestern China.

The European city project, covering a land area of 20 hectares and located in the Xi'an Free Trade Zone, which was officially approved by the State Council on Feb 14, 2011, will include the exhibition center of imported French commodities, the processing and making of high-end French brand bags, garments and luxury goods as well as logistics facilities.

The ASEAN international industrial park in the free trade zone, with a land area of 200 hectares, will be constructed with an investment of 10 billion yuan by SANDRATEX Group. The park will be comprised of the bonded processing bases of established international brands, the deep processing of rubber products and the exhibition and trading center of imported and luxury goods from Southeast Asia and Africa.

Under the photovoltaic project, Xi'an Huanghe Photovoltaic Technology Co Ltd will construct a production line in the zone for 300-megawatt photovoltaic cell panels, and its products will be exported to the European and US markets.

Hang Song added that the park will provide all service necessary for the investors, and will bring the functions and advantages of the park as an inland international port into full play. He said he is confident that the park will serve as a driving engine for economic development of Xi'an and the whole province, and even in the northwestern region as a whole.