Sources from the Beijing Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Committee yesterday said the export volume of Beijing's foreign enterprises - including solely foreign-funded companies, Sino-foreign joint ventures and co-operative enterprises - totalled US$3.252 billion last year, a 13.3 percent increase from 2000 and 66.7 percent of the city's total export volume.

Among Beijing's top 20 exporters last year, 14 were foreign-funded ones, with Nokia topping the list with its export volume exceeding US$1 billion while Ericsson followed with over US$200 million," said Li Zhao, a director with the committee.

Six enterprises in the municipality have grown US$20 million in export growth, four of which were foreign-funded companies.

Experts say due to the capital city's sound investing environment and the municipal government's efforts to further improve its administrative services, more foreign enterprises wanted to operate in Beijing. Reinvestment witnessed a surge in the recent years, the experts added.

In 2001, the contractual and actual foreign investments reached US$3.22 billion and US$4.01 billion respectively, 10.7 percent and 33.2 percent higher than those in the previous year.

So far, 159 of the world's top 500 companies have set up subsidiaries or joint ventures in Beijing, 19 of which have moved their regional headquarters to the capital city.

"The foreign capital introduction soared swiftly in the city's service industry last year," Li said.

According to official statistics, last year, foreign money to Beijing's tourism and entertainment sectors were 4.5 and 4.39 times those in 2000. Foreign investors also entered the city's logistics and taxi sectors, with three joint ventures launched including Kerry-Jingtai, Huanjie and Jinjian launched.

"This year, we offer an exchanging and negotiation platform for the overseas investor and the local commercial, education and medical care operators," Li said.

Experts said that as an international metropolis and capital city of China, Beijing should make it its priority to upgrade and renovate the service industry.

Statistics from the committee revealed that Beijing's total foreign trade volume amounted to US$51.541 billion in 2001, 3.9 percent more than that of 2000.

And the export volume stood at US$11.787 billion last year, a 1.5 percent decline from the previous year. Li attributed it to the relatively high base in 2000 and the global economic slowdown last year.

(China Daily January 22, 2002)