Contracts worth more than US$3.5 billion were signed with overseas investors at a three-day international technical and economic fair which concluded yesterday in Shanghai.
The investors signed 12 deals in urban construction and technology development projects with companies from Harbin in Heilongjiang Province, Zhucheng in Shandong Province and Wuxi, Jiangsu Province.
The deals were sealed during the International Technical and Economic Forum and Fair, which was organized by United Nations Technical Information Promotion System.
More than 3,000 technical and economic cooperation projects at home and abroad were on display during the fair at the Shanghai Exhibition Center. It's the first time the annual fair has been held in China.
International investors from Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Singapore signed agreements yesterday to invest US$2.5 billion in mine projects in Harbin.
Other projects include construction of Harbin's urban metro system, an information technology park, plants to make medicines for AIDS, the agricultural application of ozone technology and building an assembly hall commemorating Sino-Japanese friendship.
Harbin is expected to become China's first procurement center of international emergency goods such as tents, medical aid, cereals and other foodstuffs, officials with the European Union said during the forum.
Zhucheng in Shandong Province signed two agreements worth US$1 billion with Japanese partners on co-developing ceramic and soil technology and establishing a Dinosaur Culture Fund.
Laos also signed an agreement with Asia's financial institutions during the fair, seeking US$1.5 billion for urban construction of its capital, Vientiane, and development of a 360-square-kilometer ecological zone.