During the first eight months of this year, the IT sector in China attracted more than US$5.1 billion of foreign investment, 15 percent of the country's total, according to official statistics.

Ma Dexiu, director of the hi-tech industrial development department of the State Development Planning Commission, recently said here that more than 90 percent of US transnational companies have chosen to invest in China.

In the first half of this year, an average of US$160 of foreign direct investment (FDI) entered China every day, he said, citing official statistics.

Ma said FDI has diverted in recent years from simple processing to the creation of upper and down-stream products. More and more international companies have begun investing their latest technology in China, he said.

Toshiba has pitched in to the IT sector, having already invested in home appliances, electromechanical products and energy. So far, nearly 400 of the world's top 500 enterprises have invested more than 2,000 projects in China with over 100 research and development centers.

China's IT output soared by an average annual rate of 20 percent in the last decade, three times the gross domestic product growth, and is expected to exceed 1.6 trillion yuan (US$192.7 bilious) this year.

China is the world's biggest producer of mobile phones, DVD players, color TV sets, and program controlled switches and other electronic equipment.

(Xinhua News Agency November 4, 2002)