During the seven-day event, participants signed 396 cooperation contracts or letters of intent, involving US$2.64 billion in foreign funds, according to a press conference held Friday.

The event has greatly enhanced economic cooperation among APEC member economies, said Wang Hui, an official with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC).

All the APEC members and 28 of China's provinces or autonomous regions have participated in the event, which had 966 exhibit booths. More than 100,000 people, including 3,000 foreigners, took part in the fair.

During the event, APEC member economies offered a total of 2,406 projects for investment cooperation.

Details of 288 large projects that are intended for foreign businesses to invest in were given by the State Development Planning Commission (SDPC). Most of them involve high technology, with a total investment of more than US$47 billion.

Shandong Province was believed to be the biggest winner of the fair. Shandong delegations signed more than 130 projects with foreign investors in the fair, more than one third of the total.

Twenty-one of them are projects with an investment of more than US$10 million each. The Shandong Yanzhou Coal Mine Group signed four cooperation contracts with its foreign partners on Wednesday, involving a total investment of US$1.28 billion.

The province also publicized 110 key projects looking for a total foreign investment of US$13 billion.

Participants from China's less-developed central and western areas were also encouraged by the results. More than one third of the 228 projects announced by the SDPC are located in those areas.

Booths for Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan and Inner Mongolia were very popular among foreign participants. These provinces and regions signed more than 30 project agreements during the fair, with an investment value of US$150 million.

(chinadaily.com.cn 06/16/2001)