Northeastern hub sees more foreign investors

The automaking industry is among the potential sectors in which foreign companies can invest in Dalian. [Photo by ZHANG CHUNLEI/CHINA DAILY]

According to the Dalian bureau of foreign trade and economic cooperation, more than 70 foreign-funded enterprises had been established in the city this year as of the end of May, with pledged investment amounting to $12.5 billion. The total amount invested in Dalian so far this year totaled $1.58 billion by May, increasing 4.39 percent from the same period of last year.

Renowned global information technology giant Intel is one of the biggest sources of investment, with newly added funding of $479 million in place to expand the capacity of its Dalian plant.

The newly added fund is part of its committed investment of $5.5 billion, announced in October last year, and will be used to upgrade its nonvolatile memory chip production facilities at its existing Dalian plant.

Non-volatile memory, or non-volatile storage, is a type of computer memory that can retrieve stored information even after having been turned off and back on.

Dalian is located at the southernmost end of the Liaodong Peninsula, at the conjunction of the Yellow Sea in the east and Bohai Bay in the west. It neighbors such countries as Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Russia.

With a land area of 13,000 square kilometers and a population of 6.9 million, the city is one of the shipping hubs in Northeast Asia and one of the most favored foreign investment destinations in Northeast China.

According to Liu Zhiguo, deputy chief of the Dalian bureau of foreign trade and economic cooperation, the city has approved about 18,000 foreign-invested enterprises in the past 30 years, with accumulated investment totaling $105.86 billion.

He said more than 4,600 foreign-invested enterprises are currently operational in Dalian, including those funded by renowned multinational companies such as British Telecom, Volkswagen, Total and Canon.

By the end of 2016, there were 262 projects funded by 113 companies on the Fortune Global 500 list.