From our archives

Oct 13, 1983

Foreigners may start businesses

Foreign businessmen may start enterprises with their own exclusive investment in China's coastal areas where conditions permit, Vice-minister of Economic Relations and Foreign Trade Wei Yuming told a group of foreign business leaders in Beijing recently.

Wei said the move was part of a Chinese government decision to further relax policies on absorbing foreign funds. In the past four years, the country has absorbed $13 billion in foreign funds, of which $5 billion was direct foreign investment.

Beijing's insurance develops rapidly

Premiums paid to the Beijing branch of the People's Insurance Company of China in the first nine months of this year amounted to 16.57 million yuan, roughly the same as during the whole of last year, Yan Kewen, deputy director of the branch, said yesterday.

The total number of policy holders has increased 14,000 on the figure of last year to 30,271, and the branch began offering new classes of insurance this year, including cargo transport, personal accident, threshing-floor fire, and livestock and poultry.

(China Daily 10/14/2008 page9)