The coastal city of Xiamen in East China's Fujian province utilizes nearly 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) worth of foreign investment in the first seven months of this year. [Photo/xmnn.cn]

Xiamen in East China's Fujian province utilized nearly 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) worth of foreign investment in the first seven months of this year, growing 37.9 percent year-on-year, according to statistics released by the city's commercial bureau.

Statistics show that as of the end of July this year, 554 enterprises had been newly established in Xiamen, bringing in a total contractual foreign investment of 22.47 billion yuan, up 23.8 percent year-on-year. The city's actual utilization of foreign capital accounted for 49.2 percent of Fujian's total, ranking first in the province.

The actual utilization of foreign capital in the service sector grew by 78.2 percent year-on-year to 6.22 billion yuan in the January to July period, while that in the manufacturing industry grew 6.4 percent to 4.76 billion yuan.

Xiamen introduced 46 large foreign investment projects worth $2.84 billion, each having a contractual foreign investment of more than $10 million, accounting for 89 percent of the city's total.

Despite the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, Xiamen has issued favorable policies to attract foreign investment and stabilize foreign trade, with many cloud signing activities having been held in the first seven months of this year.

Additionally, an array of measures was rolled out to better the city's business environment and deepen reform and opening-up.