Ningbo's overseas investment ranks No. 1
- Details
- Category: Governmental News
- Published: Tuesday, 12 June 2012 09:22
According to Ningbo Foreign Trade & Economic Cooperation Bureau, enterprises in Ningbo are accelerating their pace of "going out". In the first four months of this year, 79 overseas enterprises and organizations are approved, with a total investment of $478 million, up by 31.1% over the same period last year.
By the end of April, there had been 1507 approved overseas enterprises and organizations from Ningbo, among which there are over 1000 trade companies and agencies, distributing in 97 foreign countries and regions. The total investment from Ningbo reached $3.168 billion, which makes Ningbo No. 1 among all the 15 sub-provincial cities in terms of the investment scale.
Not long ago, Ningbo greeted the first non-government inspection delegation from the United States. "We want to seek investment from China to our projects." George Capon, head of the delegation, who had worked many years on Wall Street, showed great interest in Ningbo's private enterprises. "We have a yacht project, you can obtain 30% shares with an investment of $20 million. We are earnest to cooperate with private enterprises in Ningbo."
According to a related official from Ningbo Foreign Trade & Economic Cooperation Bureau, this is the first time for a non-government inspection delegation from the United States to come to Ningbo. "The visiting revealed a message that to some capable enterprises in Ningbo, 'going out' means holding more shares of better companies with less investment."
In fact, Ningbo enterprises are speeding up their pace of "going out". At the beginning of this year, the Lawrence Company of Ningbo Huaxiang Group acquired 100% shares of Northern Engraving Corp., a company manufacturing automobile interiors, by investing $46 million. It means that Huaxiang Group will obtain half of the market shares for middle and high-end aluminum alloy automobile interiors in the world.
In the meanwhile, Ningbo enterprises are going out to overcome the bottleneck of resources shortage in Ningbo by making the most of the relatively inexpensive resources in other countries. In last year only, seven overseas resource enterprises were approved with an investment of $189 million from Ningbo enterprises, up by 231.7% over the previous year.
Through overseas mergers and acquisitions as well as overseas cooperation, Ningbo enterprises are accelerating their pace from products "going out" to capital "going out". In the recent years, some overseas mergers and acquisitions by Ningbo enterprises are quite impressive. The accumulated investment from Ningbo enterprises in a range of big projects, such as Youngor's acquisition of Xin Ma Apparel International Limited, Joyson's acquisition of Preh Group, and Evergreen's acquisition of Canada MAG, surpassed one billion dollars.
An analysis from Ningbo Foreign Trade & Economic Cooperation Bureau shows that in the past five years, the scope of overseas investment by Ningbo enterprises have extended from the traditional fields including trade and logistics to such emerging fields as R & D manufacturing, resource development, new energy and ecological development. In 2011, the overseas investment by Ningbo enterprises exceeded $1.1 billion, accounting for 34% of the total investment from Zhejiang Province.
According to Yu Danhua, Chief of Ningbo Foreign Trade & Economic Cooperation Bureau, with the increased constraints on resources and labor forces, Ningbo will continue to adjust and improve its developing pattern of external economy. It will encourage more enterprises to "go out" to get involved in the international economic circulation and expand their space of survival and development
