China has used US$43.56 billion of overseas investment in the first 10 months of 2003, up 5.81 percent year-on-year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce.

In the first 10 months, newly approved companies with overseas investment reached 32,696, up 17.99 percent compared with that of the same term of last year.

Contracted overseas investment was US$88.68 billion, up 33.75 percent.

By the end of October 2003, the total number of companies with overseas investment was 456,892. Contractual overseas investment totaled US$916.7 billion and actually used investment was US$491.5 billion.

(Xinhua News Agency November 12, 2003)