The west development is a significant strategy in the 21st century made by the central government and a package of favorable policies have been formulated to attract foreign investment to the west, said the State Councilor Wu Yi when she was making lecture in Tokyo, Japan on July 28.

According to Wu, most of the fiscal construction funds, loans of the administrative banks and preferential loans from abroad will be put into the development of the west regions. Meanwhile, more money is expected to flow into infrastructure and foreign businesses will be encouraged to invest in sectors of agriculture, water conservancy, ecology, traffic, resource, urban infrastructure, environmental protection, mineral, tourism and resource tapping.

She pointed out that the service and trade sectors will be more open, and China is considering exploring various channels to introduce foreign investment like issuing shares, project loan and BOT.

The foreign-funded enterprises in China are encouraged to reinvest in the west and preferential tax polices will be spelled out for their businesses there.

"In a word, the west development provides huge business opportunities for foreign ventures," said Wu.

She also noted that the new century is a turning point for China's opening policy, which could be demonstrated in the following phases:

a. The opening in limited fields to become overall opening.
b. The foreseeable law-framed opening to replace the old one that is regulated by
policy and featured by experiment.
c. The unilateral opening to be multilateral opening between China and the WTO
members.

Once China enters the WTO, the market of the WTO members will be more accessible for Chinese enterprises, Wu added.