With a comprehensive view on the foreign direct investments since 2005, service industry, energy industry and its relevant sectors remain to be the hotspots of investment growth. At the same time, a lot of inland cities begins to become the targeted areas of foreign investment. As the Chinese government enhances its construction of new countryside, it is also possible for the countryside to attract more and more attention.

In recent years, foreign direct investment attracted into China, which hit the historic high of US$60.63 billion in 2004, has been witness a sustained growth; but in 2005, such a growth trend slowed down slightly with a little bit decrease on a year-on-year basis. In 2005, the number of newly established foreign-invested enterprises across China amounted to 44,001 with a year-on-year growth of 0.77 percent but the foreign investment actually used amounted to US$60.325 billion with a year-on-year decrease of 0.5 percent.

Since April 2005 (except September 2005), China's amount of foreign funds actually used in a single month has been witnessing a downtrend and the decrease margin for the amount of foreign funds actually used in the three respective months of the second quarter all surpassed 10 percent. Such a huge decrease margin is rarely seen in recent years.

So far as the source of foreign funds invested in China is concerned, the number of newly established enterprises with US investment in China and the amount of such investment decreased by 4.69 percent and 22.32 percent respectively in 2005. The number of newly established enterprises with funds from 10 Asian countries (regions) in China increased by 0.69 percentages, but the amount of such investment actually used decreased by 5.19 percentage. The newly established enterprises with funds from some free ports in China also decreased by 3.21 percent; yet, the number of newly established enterprises with funds from the original 15 EU member countries in China and the amount of such investment did increase by 17.46 percent and 22.52 percent respectively.

The facts that the economies of neighboring countries and developed countries picked up the developing speed and such countries attracted foreign investors with their own advantages have influenced the scale of China's utilization of foreign funds to some extent. In 2005, Russia attracted US$16.7 billion of foreign direct investments, which accounted for 2.2 percent of Russia's GDP. Russia, where the growth rate of market was only second to that in China, ranked the second in the world.

In 2005, the volume of foreign funds attracted to India, which has thus become the country ranking the second in the world, has surpassed that attracted into the United States. Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment announced that Vietnam would attract US$4.5 - 4.6 billion, thus becoming one of the countries with the quickest economic growth rate in Southeast Asia.

The transition period after the entry into WTO has further cut down the doorsill for the Chinese market. The potentials to enjoy the largest growth rate of the service and trade market is a comparative advantage for China to attract foreign investment. It is expected that during a rather long forthcoming period of time, the service industry will remain as a field in the favor of foreign investment in China.

Retailing commerce is a service industry through which foreign investment entered into China rather early; the opening-up of the insurance industry has made it possible for foreign companies to enter into China gradually. At the end of 2004, the Chinese insurance industry had opened up all areas and all businesses except some statutory insurance businesses to foreign investment. The year 2005 is the first year for the Chinese insurance industry to implement the all-rounded opening-up to the outside world, and the market shares seized by foreign-funded insurance companies increased to nearly 7 percent during that year.

As shown by statistics of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), the domestic insurance market opened up step by step in 2005: three foreign insurance companies were permitted to enter into China's market, and 25 foreign-funded insurance agencies set up in China. For the time being, the number of foreign-funded insurance companies has increased from 14 in 2000 to 40 in 2005. Altogether 27 out of the 46 insurance companies listed into the Fortune Top 500 of the World have set up their agencies in China.

Ever since December 6, 2005, China has further scaled up the opening-up of its banking industry. Foreign-funded financial institutions' management of Renminbi businesses has been extended to Shantou and Ningbo while five other cities of Harbin, Changchun, Lanzhou, Yinchuan and Nanning were opened up in advance. The latest statistics indicate that the businesses of foreign-funded banks in China develop very rapidly in recent years, and the respective annual growth rates of assets, deposits, and loans are all above 30 percent.

In September 2005, the Beijing Office of the US Peabody Energy Corporation, which is the largest private coal company in the world, officially set up. For the moment, Peabody Energy has contacted with Huaneng Power International, Inc., Shenhua Group and some large Iron & Steel enterprises; in future, it will also provide raw materials to and conduct technological exchange with Chinese power and Iron & Steel enterprises. Before that, the US Asian American Coal Inc. (AACI) had established the Shanxi Asian American Daning Energy Co., Ltd. and seized the holding right of 56 percent. Moreover, the US Morgan Bank purchased the 170 million H-stocks of the Yanzhou Mine, and companies from countries like Australia, South Korea, and Japan also went to China's major coal-producing provinces and autonomous regions like Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Inner Mongolia to seek to get shares in local coal mines opened up.

The situation of tense power supply goes on as before. Multinationals think highly of the huge market of power-generating equipment in China, thus having expedited their investment in China. In October 2005, a joint venture invested by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) from Japan in Guangzhou was completed and began to produce heat components, the core components of turbines; and it is expected that its sales would amount to 8 billion yen by 2010. Early as in April 2002, MHI signed a "Joint Venture Agreement" with Dong Fang Steam Turbine Works on the joint investment to set up the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Dongfang Gas Turbine (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., a Chinese-foreign joint venture manufacturing heat components on gas turbines and providing after-sale services and maintenance of gas turbines. The total investment in the joint venture is approximately 4.5 billion yen with MHI offering 51 percent of the overall investment and Dongfang Steam Turbine offering the other 49 percent, and the term for the joint venture is 20 years.

In 2004, the French Alsthom Ltd. signed a framework agreement to set up a joint venture with the Beijing Jingcheng Mechanical & Electrical Holding Co. Ltd (JCH) and its subordinate enterprise Beijing Heavy Electrical Machinery Factory so as to set up a long-term partnership between two parties on the manufacture of 60,000kw steam turbine sets.

Since the Tenth Five-year Period, China has expedited its steps in international exchanges and cooperation in agriculture and made prominent achievements. From 2001 to 2003, agricultural projects making use of foreign direct investment amounted to nearly 3,000 with a total agreement sum of US$5.7 billion. The annual amount is about US$1.9 billion on average, nearly twice the average annual agreements sum of foreign investment made use of during the 20 years before.

The salary costs in China's inland cities is 20~50 percent lower than in coastal cities, and the rising rate of salaries is slower than that in large cities and coastal cities as well; however, the investment environment in such cities has got consummated gradually in recent years. As a result, some foreign investors have stopped their investment in metropolises like Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou; instead, they begin to cast their eyes on Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing, Ningbo, Dalian, Shenyang etc., and slightly less eye-catching cities of the second echelon formation.

Mr. Wei Xinghua, the AmCham-China Chairman, expressed that in 2006, the investments from the United States in China will not only increase in a sustained way but nearly a half of US companies will also seek to invest in cities on the second and third-tier bench like Xi'an, Chengdu, and Dalian, etc. in the western and northeastern parts of China. According to him, quite many industries are all shifting from place to place at present; for example, the electronic assembly industry that was originally in Guangdong can go to Hohehot Municipality to conduct production. Moreover, there were originally some industries with traditional advantages like agriculture, large machinery, energy resources, chemical industry, etc. in the middle and western parts of China. Inland cities begin to demonstrate their charms, which will create conditions for foreign enterprises to invest there.