With the continuous economic development of the Chinese mainland, Taiwanese businessmen's investment here has remained hot. The investment features and trends can be expounded as a four hot-spot area of distribution, said Li Fei, deputy president of the Research Institute of the Relations Development Across the Straits attached to Xiamen University. The four areas include the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the Bohai Bay Economic Rim and the Economic Belt along the coastal line of Fujian province, said Li Fei in an interview with reporter Lai Jianqiang. He believes that it has been a tendency for the investment to move along the southeast coastal line to the north in recent years. However, it has not been obvious so far if the central and western parts of the mainland can become new hot spots for investment.

In recent years the three areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, having flexible policies, have attracted a large portion of investments. As a result, they have lured a great group of Taiwan-funded enterprises and the Yangtze River Delta has turned to a "big hot spot'' for investment. The Taiwan-funded enterprises here are mainly technology-intensive enterprises in the areas of electronics, electromechanical and information industries as well as related auxiliary enterprises, belonging to high-end trades.

Why is the Pearl River Delta called as a "waste heat spot''? Li Fei explained that judging from the capital markets, the delta has been basically saturated for the moment and the overall investment growth is comparatively stable and should remain fundamentally the same, except for a small margin. According to the latest statistical data, the total contractual Taiwanese investment in the delta is more than 40 billion yuan, including the investment in the third area. There will be an increase of about 1 billion US dollars each year with the actual investment totalling more than 22 billion US dollars. "Funds are not what the delta requires most. The promotion of industrial technology and infrastructure is the primary requirement'', said Li Fei.

Taiwanese businessmen have gone north and have entered the Bohai Bay Economic Rim, forming a new "hot spot'' here due to the gradual saturation of investment in the Yangtze Delta, said Li Fei. "The best investment area for the businessmen is Shandong, which is followed by Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Liaoning''. In Shandong they are inclined to invest in agriculture and manufacturing industries, including light, textile, petrochemical and electronic trades; in Tianjin, in enterprises with high technical content; in Beijing, in service industries; in Hebei and Liaoning, in traditional industries. At present, the contractual investment in the rim has reached more than 20 billion US dollars with about 10 billion US dollars of actual investment, close to the investment in Fujian. As an initial place for Taiwanese businessmen's investment on the mainland, said Li Fei, Fujian remains the "little hot spot'' for Taiwan investment with regional, policy and economic advantages as its main support.

Source: People's Daily