Fujian, which was one of the first provinces to apply China’s opening-up policies, has seen more than 45,000 foreign enterprises coming to invest, bringing in more than $168 billion in contracts, with a utilization rate of 67 percent, and foreign investment has continued to grow even during periods of financial uncertainty.

The foreign investment hit all-time high of $12.1 billion, in 2011, about 5 percent of China’s total, and putting Fujian in fourth place among all of China's provinces. When the GDP is considered, its FDI for 2010 put it in the No 3 slot among China's provinces. Many of the world's major manufacturers have operations here, including ABB, Boeing, Daimler, Dell, ExxonMobil, Hitachi, LG, Phillips Electronics, Anheuser Busch, and Wal-mart.

A significant contribution to its industrial development and competitiveness has come from several hundred Japanese, European Union, and American companies, who together brought in $4 billion over the past two decades. Now, greater attention is being paid to the role these investment projects play in the development of clusters, and a number of institutions are looking for ways to improve the province's global competitiveness by finding the right conditions international industrial clusters.