Economy and Business

Fair nets deals worth $17.7 billion

By Ma Chenguang (China Daily Anhui Bureau)
Updated: 2010-06-23 20:43

HEFEI - The Sixth Annual Investment and Trade EXPO 2010 closed Wednesday in Anhui province with deals inked for at least 124 major investment projects worth $17.7 billion.

The items included 54 overseas-invested projects with a total input of $7.1 billion and 70 domestically-invested projects with an input of 72.34 billion yuan ($10.6 billion), said Yang Benqing, chief of the EXPO Organizing Committee. They covered areas such as equipment manufacturing, high technology, textiles, raw material processing, culture, tourism, trade and logistics.

The overseas investors came from 12 countries and regions including Japan, Germany, Britain, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, he said.

The current fair, which drew 2,652 domestic businesspersons and 1,105 overseas investors from 52 countries and regions, is the East China province's largest annual event, said Zheng Mingwu, deputy director of Anhui Provincial Information Office.

Nearly 100,000 visitors toured the fair at Anhui International Exhibition & Conference Center, Zheng said.

Yang noted that 78 projects out of the 124 will be stationed in the new Industrial Transfer Demonstration Zone in the Anhui Yangtze River City Belt, which is under construction.

Domestic investors mainly came from 11 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities including Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Guangdong, Fujian and Beijing.

Covering 76,000 sq km and with a population of 30.58 million, the demonstration zone includes 10 Anhui cities along the Yangtze, including Hefei, Wuhu, Maanshan, Tongling, Anqing, Chizhou, Chaohu, Chuzhou and Xuancheng, as well as two districts in Lu’an city. Anhui has 17 prefecture-level cities under its jurisdiction.

To better develop the zone, Anhui also signed two MOUs with the Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine concerning respective spheres, Yang said.

Yang noted that prior to the opening of the annual fair, the EXPO Organizing Committee has collected 1,546 recommended investment projects with a total targeted input of US$192.2 billion.

Among them, 594 projects --- accounting for 59.4 percent of the total - are from regions in the Industrial Transfer Demonstration Zone in the Anhui Yangtze River City Belt, with a targeted investment of US$96.3 billion which represents 72 percent of the total.

The current fair, which was sponsored by Anhui Provincial People's Government, included such major activities as a summit forum, an investment promotion seminar and signing ceremony, projects matchmaking symposium, Hui Merchants symposium,

Hui Merchants forum, service outsourcing forum and a coal chemical industry cooperation forum, said Yang Jianbo, a division chief of Anhui Provincial Information Office.

Meanwhile, a tourism promotion conference, a modern tertiary industry promotion conference, art performance and a Hui-Style cuisine festival were also held during the fair, he said.

Yang Benqing affirmed that the successful fair showed that Anhui is receiving more attention from home and abroad, as the participants included 18 foreign diplomats from 15 countries, and representatives from 312 enterprises listed among the World 500 or being multinational corporations.

To promote the development of the province's cultural sector, 82 cultural projects involving a total investment of 21.5 billion yuan, were signed during the projects matchmaking symposium, Yang said.

The Anhui Provincial People's Government also signed two MOUs with the State Press and Publication Administration and China Development Bank to propel the province's cultural sector, he stressed.

The province is known as the birthplace of the Scholar's Four Treasures of Xuan writing and drawing brush, ink stick, ink slab and Xuan paper.