Fuzhou magnet for foreign investors

Aerial photo shows the fine venues of Fuzhou Straits Culture and Art Center, forming the structure of five petals of a giant jasmine flower. [Photo/fj.people.cn]

As the capital of Fujian province and one of the pivotal cities along the Belt and Road Initiative, Fuzhou has attracted 93 Fortune 500 companies to take root in the city to date.

Fuzhou has huge market potential and a sound business climate, said Patrice Dreano, vice president of Ikea Retail China, adding the city's high-level opening-up attracted Ikea. Ikea is the latest company of the Fortune 500 to settle in Fuzhou and will open to the public in 2020.

Official statistics show a total of 11,001 foreign-invested enterprises have settled in Fuzhou, with contractual foreign investments up to $48.41 billion and utilization of foreign capital reaching $28.24 billion by the end of 2017.

As a port city, Fuzhou has made full use of its geographic advantage and has leveraged it to one of the driving forces in the city's development and opening-up.

Fuzhou has brought in 558 projects from countries and regions along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road thus far, with the total contractual foreign investments amounting to $3.635 billion.

Meanwhile, Fuzhou has invested and built five overseas marine fishery bases, including Mauritania Fishery Base, China's biggest marine fishery base overseas.

Overseas Chinese is also a strong force in the Fuzhou's economic progress. 70 percent of the city's foreign direct investments are from overseas Chinese, who had established 3,500 enterprises by the end of 2017.

Overseas Chinese investments have been playing an important role in ideological emancipation and updating, boosting Fuzhou's foreign economic exchanges and cooperation, according to an official of the Fuzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce.

Proximity to Taiwan is also an indispensable advantage of Fuzhou. As the closest provincial capital city to Taiwan and the major ancestral home of Taiwan people, Fuzhou has become the window of cross-Straits cooperation and exchanges, with the wide range of preferential policies available for Taiwan businessman.

The actual investment from Taiwan has reached $5.88 billion and a total of 3,770 Taiwan invested projects have been set up in Fuzhou by the end of 2017, according to official data.