On the morning of July 24, the press conference for 12th China International Fair for Investment and Trade (CIFIT) was held in Beijing. Assistant Minister of Commerce Wang Chao, Vice Governor of Fujian Province and Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the CIFIT Organizing Committee Ye Shuangyu, Mayor of Xiamen City and Deputy Director of the CIFIT Organizing Committee Liu Cigui were present at the press conference and introduced the 12th CIFIT.

Wang Chao said that since the reform and opening up for 30 years, China's absorption of foreign capital and foreign economic cooperation have achieved remarkable results. China's absorption of foreign capital topped the list of the developing countries for 15 consecutive years. Up to the first half of 2008, China had approved a total of 647,000 foreign-invested enterprises established, and the amount of foreign capital in actual use was USD815.4 billion. In the first half of this year, the amount of China’s foreign capital in actual use was USD52.4 billion，up 45.6%. The absorption of foreign investment in advanced manufacturing industry and the modern service industry grew fast and the absorption of foreign investment in central and western areas increased by 1 and 1.4 times respectively. In foreign investment, by the end of March 2008, the total foreign non-financial direct investment in China had hit USD113.1 billion. In the first quarter of this year, the foreign non-financial direct investment in China was USD19.34 billion, up 3.5 times.

Wang Chao introduced the 12th CIFIT. He said that the CIFIT is currently the largest international investment promotion event in China aimed at promoting bidirectional investment. Since the first CIFIT was held 11 years ago, altogether there are over 100,000 overseas merchants from more than 140 countries and regions participated in it, and more than 13,000 projects were negotiated and over 770 billion dollars were signed. This year is the 30th anniversary of China's reform and opening up, and compared with the previous sessions, the CIFIT this year shall have bigger scale, richer content and more prominent in international characteristics in exhibitions, project-docking meetings and forums. Moreover, the number of countries participated in the exhibition and forum shall surpass the previous ones. The exhibition shall have an increased proportion of trade and richer display content. The project-docking meetings shall add new modern services industry and many special project-docking meetings to comprehensively expand the industry investment function. And regarding forums and seminars, the International Investment Forum, with Strengthening International Cooperation in Investment and Promoting Global Economic Development as its subject, shall invite distinguished guests from home and abroad to deliver speeches. At the same time, the conference shall hold many forums and seminars on current international finance, the service outsourcing, enterprise community responsibility, investment and financing risks and other domestic and overseas hot issues. The 12th CIFIT shall also hold activities such as the Chinese - Pacific Ocean Island Countries Economic Development Cooperation Forum - Investment, Trade, Tourism Ministerial Meeting and China and Portuguese-speaking Countries Bidirectional Investment Dialogue.

When introducing the relavant information, Ye Shuangyu pointed out that the 12th CIFIT is facing the rare advantageous opportunity. 2008 is the 30th anniversary of China's reform and opening up, and also the year of Beijing Olympic Games. At the same time, the Cross-Straits relations have a positive change and the economic globalization process and international industrial transfer are speeding up, the external environment and economic situation have created favorable conditions for the 12th CIFIT. The present CIFIT shall continue to focus on the two main subjects of “Bringing in” and “Going Global”, give prominence to national and international characteristics, investment negotiations and investment policy publicity, coordinated development of the country’s regional economy and economic and trade exchanges with Taiwan.