BDA becomes hot spot for IT companies
( 2002-04-09 10:03 ) (1 )

Beijing Economic Technological Development Area (BDA) appears to be a lucrative place for domestic and foreign electronic information enterprises, according to sources from the BDA administrative committee.

The committee also revealed that at the end of last month, there were 101 foreign-funded electronic information companies, including wholly foreign-funded ones, Sino-foreign co-operative enterprises and joint ventures, with a total investment of US$1.28 billion.

The number of domestic enterprises amounted to 11, and their investments totalled US$596 million.

So far, 35 of the world's top 500 have settled in BDA, one third of them engaged in the information industry.

The first 10 companies of China's top 100 electronic information manufacturers all have joint ventures or co-operative projects in BDA.

Meanwhile, three of China's four telecommunication operators - China Telecom, China Unicom, China Netcom - have pooled money into this area.

"The concentration of so many electronic information giants is due to upgraded infrastructures, clean environment and efficient administrative services in BDA," said Li Fengling, director of the committee.

Experts say a sound and complete electronic information industry chain, ranging from research and development, manufacturing, accessories and materials making, telecommunication operators to logistic service, has been established, which is also one of the key elements influencing investors' decisions.

Nokia's Xingwang (International) Industrial Park might be regarded as a typical example, the first phase of which has attracted 15 partners, who are involved in making chips, batteries and other components related to Nokia's production of mobile phones and base stations, as well as logistics service.

Nokia covered nearly half of the 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) investment, with the rest coming from partners.