XIAMEN, China -
Chinese companies, longtime recipients of foreign
investment, have started to export funds and
technologies amid rising global demand for
economic cooperation partners. And the Chinese
government has pledged to ease restrictions
further to facilitate outbound investment by
Chinese companies.
More than 50
China-funded firms are doing businesses involving
industry, consumer goods and logistics in the US
state of Illinois, while 10 years ago there was
none, said Norman L Li, managing
director of the state's Far
East Bureau.
Chinese companies,
particularly those specializing in construction,
electronics and bio-technologies are warmly
welcomed to invest in Illinois, the United States'
fifth-largest state and the hub of manufacturing,
trade and transportation, Li said at his booth in
the exhibition hall of the China International
Fair for Investment and Trade, held in this
coastal city of China's Fujian province.
He said Chinese entrepreneurs are
hard-working and flexible, which leads to high
corporate efficiency. Moreover, Chinese products
are of good quality and competitive in prices.
"China will become a major source of
global investment sooner or later, although it is
still young compared with Britain and Japan - the
top two investors in Illinois," Li said.
Many famous Chinese companies, including
COSCO, Haier, Huawei and Baosteel, have introduced
capital, technologies or administrative methods to
Italy, according to Barbara Gasperi, trade officer
of the Italian Trade Commission.
Busy
answering questions from delegates of Chinese
companies at the fair, Gasperi said she hope more
Chinese investors build up confidence in business
prospects in Italy - a Mediterranean country with
geographically strategic significance.
Claiming that Chinese investors are
"innovative" and "getting increasingly popular in
the world capital market", the Italian official
said China, which is developing fast in a peaceful
way, will always benefit the world economy.
Companies and organizations from 65
countries and regions, including Canada, Germany,
Turkey and Thailand, are promoting their
investment environments and projects to numerous
Chinese participants at the annual fair, which was
launched 11 years ago as a platform to facilitate
international economic and trade cooperation.
China set forth a "going beyond the
border" strategy in 1999, encouraging domestic
enterprises to invest and do business abroad.
Membership in the World Trade Organization allows
China to enjoy a more open world market.
More than 10,000 Chinese companies had
established firms in about 160 countries and
regions as of 2006, involving US$73.3 billion in
accumulated direct investment, said Deputy
Minister of Commerce Wei Jianguo when addressing a
conference here encouraging mainland enterprises
to invest in Hong Kong.
In the first half
of this year, China's investment in overseas
markets hit $7.8 billion, up 21.1% from the same
period last year, according to the Ministry of
Commerce. North America and Asia are the top two
investment destinations.
According to the
state plan for commercial development between 2006
and 2010, China will encourage more domestic
companies to set up businesses abroad, establish
technology research centers and firms, and improve
international cooperation in the service sector.
To support the outbound investment
momentum, the People's Bank of China (PBoC), the
central bank, will scrap unnecessary controls on
foreign-exchange reserves and simplify
administrative procedures, said Zhou Xiaochuan,
governor of the central bank.
The central
bank will encourage domestic companies to raise
capital through various means including bank
loans, going public and bond sales, and will crank
up efforts to develop more products on the
foreign-currency markets to help them shun risks
brought about by the changes in market exchange
rates and interest rates, Zhou promised.
"We will remove unnecessary restrictions
on reviewing sources of foreign-exchange funds, as
well as on foreign-currency purchase and profit
remittance," he said. "We will also allow domestic
firms to use their own foreign exchanges or buy
foreign funds with the local currency, the yuan,
to invest abroad."
The PBoC governor said
the central bank will explore ways to buy shares
in foreign banks so as to provide more convenient
financial services for the overseas operations of
domestic businesses.
"We encourage them to
raise capital through various means including bank
loans, stock listings and bond sales," he said,
adding that their domestic operations can provide
warrants for the fundraising once they get
official go-ahead.
Zhou acknowledged that
the PBoC has been making vigorous efforts to
cultivate and develop foreign-currency markets
during the past few years. "The central bank will
also strengthen research on business and legal
environments in global regions where it enjoys
bilateral tech-cooperation agreements or funds
with the regional bank institutions."
China sees negative interest rates as
consumer inflation climbs mainly due to food-price
hikes, prompting more people to transfer their
bank deposits to the red-hot stock markets for
higher earnings.
China's one-year
benchmark deposit rate reached 3.60% after a
0.27-percentage-point rise starting August 22, the
fourth rise this year. But the year-on-year rise
in the Consumer Price Index, the main gauge of
inflation, may exceed the 10-year high of 5.6% in
July, said Bi Jingquan, vice head of the National
Development and Reform Commission.
However, Chinese investors, still lagging
behind enterprises from developed nations in terms
of overall capacity and experience, should be
fully aware of the destination market, and adopt
proper investment strategies, warned Liu Yingkui,
a professor of economics with Shandong College of
Finance.
The four-day trade fair in Xiamen
ends on Tuesday.
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