April 14, 2002	Sunday	Muharram 30, 1423

BEIJING, April 13: China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first quarter of this year increased by 27.5 per cent from the same period last year to US$10.1 billion, state media said on Saturday.

In the same period, investment commitments or “contracted FDI,” which give an indication of future invesment inflows, reached $17.9 billion during the first quarter, rising 11.4 per cent from the same period last year, the Financial News reported.

Last year, China’s foreign direct investment rose 14.9 per cent compared with the previous year, according to official figures, with actual FDI rising to $46.85 billion, while contracted FDI rose 10.43 per cent to $69.19 billion.

China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) late last year is expected to encourage more foreign companies to invest in China as China opens its market — lifting restrictions on investment and lowering tariffs — in order to fulfil its agreements for accession.

A UN Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva in January estimated China will attract the most FDI among Asian countries in the years ahead because of its WTO entry.

QIONGHAI: China Unicom Group, China’s second biggest cellular firm, has trimmed by one-third plans to expand cellular networks using the Qualcomm Inc-owned CDMA standard, the firm’s president said on Saturday.

President Wang Jianzhou told reporters at an economic forum in Hainan province the company would use a new software upgrade to transfer data at higher speeds but had slimmed its plans to expand the size and capacity of its CDMA network, which currently has a capacity of 15 million users but less than one million subscribers.

Most of Unicom’s new subscribers since the service was introduced in January have opted for its older, bigger network using the GSM standard popular in Europe and Asia.

We will expand our capacity by at least 10 million, he said, after speaking to diplomats and businessmen at the Boao Forum for Asia on the southern island province adding that the company had originally planned to raise the total by 15 million.

Wang could not give an exact date for the announcement of a new round of contracts with foreign and domestic telecoms gear vendors to expand the network.

China Unicom had spent 20.9 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) on its first phase of the CDMA network, Wang said. Previously, Unicom officials have said the network cost 24 billion yuan.

Unicom said earlier in the week that since January about 800,000 users had signed on to CDMA network that it and its Hong Kong-listed unit operate in China. However, 440,000 of those were inherited from a since-disbanded CDMA network.—AFP/Reuters