A global corporate executive of U.S.-based Motorola, who came especially to attend the forum said that her company was interested in many new policies regarding the development of western China released at this forum.

She believed that China's drive to develop the western part of the country has become a hit in the world economy and a growing number of multinationals are moving in to participate in the campaign.

Sources from the organizing committee for the forum said that most of the multinationals are engaged in service, manufacturing, finance and banking.

German Metro, a transnational chain-store dealer, signed an agreement with Chengdu to build a Metro warehouse shop at a cost of US$17 million. A corporate executive pledged that his company would invest US$200 million in constructing a number of Metro warehouse shops in western China in the near future.

On the first day of Western Forum of China, Sichuan Province signed contracts on 23 projects with multinationals, involving a total investment of 12.1 billion yuan (about US$1.46 billion). Guizhou and Shaanxi provinces and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, all from western China, also held trade talks or signed business deals with overseas investors at the forum.

Statistics show that more than 80 out of the world's top 500 companies have either made investments or set up business offices in western China.

Food and beverage giants like Mcdonald and Coca Cola have all set up sizable scale production companies in western China where 300 million people live. Isuzu of Japan has cooperated with Chongqing in setting up an automobile joint venture whose annual sales earnings is 3.5 billion yuan (about US$422 million).

Along with the expansion of China's campaign to develop the vast west, overseas investors are showing special interest in the construction of infrastructure and new industries like IT.

Multinationals specialized in service trade are enthusiastic about taking the lead in entering the open market in west China.

In cooperation with a French conglomerate, Marubeni of Japan built a tap water plant in Chengdu at a joint investment of US$110 million last year. Other multinationals like Shell have participated in negotiations with Chinese representatives for getting the rights to build a number of large regional projects.

Multinationals' investment in IT sector in west China is concentrated on e-commerce, software development and development of key IT upstream products.

In the meantime, sectors of finance, insurance, securities, air transport, wholesale have also attracted multinationals. More than 20 overseas financial organizations have started up representative or business offices in important western Chinese cities like Chengdu and Chongqing.

A corporate executive with New York Life Insurance Co. said at the Western Forum of China that with the support of policies from the Chinese government, the world's most important market in the new century will be in western China, though at present, western China lacks advantages in aspects ranging from technology, personnel, funds to infrastructure.

(People’s Daily 10/24/2000)