By Xinyi Li, iChongqing News

Chongqing - Focusing on the “Belt and Road” Initiative or BRI, Chongqing made great achievements in its foreign investment cooperation in Q1 2019. Chongqing's non-financial direct investment reached USD 130 million, the turnover of foreign contracted projects achieved USD 210 million, and newly signed contracts totaled USD 120 million. There were 440 labor workers of all kinds dispatched overseas. By the end of March, the number of labor workers abroad had reached 6,268.

In the first three months of this year, Chongqing enterprises registered an addition USD 180 million of foreign investment projects in BRI countries. They took an active part in the BRI construction, with the newly signed foreign contracted projects totaling USD 80 million and the turnover reaching USD 120 million, accounting for 67.7% and 60.0% in the total of the corresponding period last year respectively. Besides, they were actively engaged in investment cooperation in Southeastern and South Asian countries through New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, whose total amount of cooperation occupied more than 90% compared with that of BRI cooperation.

In Q1, Chongqing enterprises also invested in some emerging areas involving other manufacturing, eco-environmental protection, and other financial sectors. The three sectors accounted for 93% of the total investment in new projects, with the proportion of 82.6%, 5.9% and 4.8% separately. Among them, the foreign investment in other manufacturing industry accounted for 49% YoY growth.

Meanwhile, in Q1, private enterprises’ proportion in OFDI and new OFDI was 73.2% and nearly 100% respectively. The proportion of newly signed foreign contracted projects of central enterprises and state-owned enterprises in Chongqing was approximately 100%.

April 1 this year marks the second anniversary of the establishment of China (Chongqing) Free Trade Pilot Zone or CFTZ. According to the statistics of Chongqing Municipal Commission of Commerce, during the two years, newly registered enterprises added up to 24,485, accounting for 9.7% of the city’s total. The total registered capital was RMB 250.079 billion, accounting for 19.0% of the city’s total.

There were 2,431 new registered enterprises in CFTZ in Q1 according to statistics.