Overseas businesses increasing in Shenzhen
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-03-03 15:52

More than 2,000 new foreign-funded businesses set up in Shenzhen city, South China's Guangdong Province, last year, a rise of 17.28 percent from the previous year.

Foreign investment rose by 12.27 percent from 2002, bringing the total since 1980 to US$49.79 billion covering a total of 21,883 ventures.

Last year, 2,188 businesses, involving US$3.84 billion of investment, were established in the city, up 19.1 percent and 62.85 percent, figures from Shenzhen City Bureau for Industry and Commerce show.

In the meantime, foreign-funded businesses established 3,866 branch organizations or set up permanent representative offices in the city.

Shenzhen, which faces Hong Kong across the Shenzhen River, used to be a small fishing town with a population of 20,000, but in 1980 it became China's first special economic zone where a range of reform measures were introduced with the purpose of piloting the reforms for other parts of the country.