Belt and Road brings new opportunities for overseas investors in Inner Mo

With the orderly progress of the implementation of the Belt and Road initiative, Inner Mongolia has been constantly optimizing both the soft and hard environments for attracting overseas investors. 2015 witnessed big progress in the economic and trade exchanges and investment with countries along the route of the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The overseas investment structure and environment have further been optimized.

  Overseas investment used in 2015

   In 2015, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region approved 52 overseas investment projects, 18.2 percent more than in the previous year. They included 24 joint ventures, 3 cooperative enterprises and 25 wholly-owned overseas enterprises. The sources of investment included Hong Kong, South Korea, Russia, the United States and Malaysia. The amount of overseas capital used in the year was 3.35 billion U.S. dollars, 15.7 percent less than in the previous year. The investment was concentrated in the mining, manufacturing, power, fuel gas and water supply, agriculture, forestry, livestock breeding and fisheries, leasing and commercial service, non-metal smelting and hotels and restaurants. The areas where investment was concentrated include Ordos, Hohhot, Baotou, Bayan Zuoer city, Hulunbir and Chifeng.

  In the year, Inner Mongolia made steady progress in the economic and trade exchanges with countries along the route of the Belt and Road. The countries along the routes established 14 overseas capital enterprises, 100 percent more than in the previous year. The total amount of investment used and the amount of capital put in place from Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Germany and the United States reached 640 million U.S. dollars, 94.7 percent more than in the previous year.

  The countries along the route mainly invested in manufacturing, service industry, power, metallurgy and new energy power generation. The areas of investment were concentrated in Hohhot, Baotou, Ordos, Chifeng and Bayan Zuoer city.

  The region's import and export trade with 58 countries along the route reached 7.709 billion U.S. dollars, 14.8 percent less than in the previous year. Export was 2.788 billion U.S. dollars, 14.6 percent less than in the previous year and import was 4.921 billion U.S. dollars, 14.9 percent less than in the previous year, leaving a trade deficit of 2.133 billion U.S. dollars. Imports and exports include ore sand, mineral fuel, iron and steel, stone materials, machinery, furniture, textiles, food and vegetables, leather, ceramics and plastic articles.

  The region’s enterprises invested in 5 countries along the route, involving 90 new put-on-record investment projects, which were 114.29 percent more than in the previous year, accounting for 78.26 percent of the total new outbound investment projects of the whole region. Chinese agreed investment accounted to 519 million U.S. dollars, 16.02 percent less than in the previous year, accounting for 29.93 percent of the total contracted investment by the whole region. The areas of investment included agriculture, forestry, livestock breeding and fisheries, mining, manufacturing, catering industry, wholesale and retail sales, construction trade, services, communications and transport, and cultural and arts. 45 enterprises invested in Russia, with a contracted investment of 223 million U.S. dollars; 41 enterprises invested in Mongolia, with the Chinese contracted investment reaching 277 million U.S. dollars. Two enterprises invested in the United Arab Emirates, with the Chinese contracted investment of 1,600,100 U.S. dollars. One enterprise invested in Hungary, with a Chinese contracted investment of 15 million U.S. dollars. One enterprise invested in Indonesia, with a Chinese contracted investment of 2 million U.S. dollars.    
 
  Irrational structure in the use of overseas Investment

  1.There are big regional disparities in the use of overseas investment. Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia, Baotou and Ordos, two major industrial cities in the western part of the region, accounted for a fairly big weight of the overseas investment put place in the region. Overseas-funded enterprises were concentrated in the western part of the region.

  2.Industrial distribution and focus of investment are not rational. Most overseas investors invested in energy, metallurgy, machinery, chemicals and real estate. Investment in other areas is few and far between. The focus of investment was put on energy, mining and processing industries.

  3.Investment conditions are not good enough. Although the region has made much progress in improving the investment conditions, there is still a big gap as compared with developed regions. In the investment climate, the administrative examination and approval have not been streamlined. A few areas are lagging far behind in government information service platform, making it difficult for enterprises to know about the government policies. There is a lack of competent personnel, especially skilled workers.

  4.The form of using overseas investment is less innovative. Some places mainly rely on their resource advantage, tax reduction and interest concession and lower industrial access threshold to attracted overseas investment. Meanwhile, some places emphasize the number of overseas-funded projects to be introduced, and make light of quality of these projects.     The attracted projects and duplicated introduction have deviated from the planned targets for economic restructuring.  （Contributed by Xinhua Reporter Yu Jia）