The China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) has attracted an overall investment of 21.55 billion yuan ($3.24 billion) in the first three quarters of 2020, officials from the Investment Promotion Agency of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region announced on Oct 21.

A number of 7,187 companies have been set up in the Guangxi FTZ in the first nine months of the year, of which 53 are foreign-invested companies, with a contracted foreign capital of $209 million. At present, the number of companies in the Guangxi FTZ amounts to 16,290, of which 204 of them are foreign-invested companies.

The Guangxi FTZ has signed 48 major projects, worth around 26 billion yuan, and industries like digital economy, port shipping, and logistics have become investment hot spots.

"A batch of major projects are pushing forward their construction in Guangxi, such as the e-commerce incubation base of ZTO Express, the regional headquarters of Cedar Holdings, and the China-ASEAN intelligent cross-border logistics platform," said Yang Chunting, director of the Investment Promotion Agency of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Yang said that Guangxi will further optimize its local business environment to attract more companies to settle in the area through initiatives, such as implementing the practice to give foreign investors in Guangxi pre-entry national treatment, which refers to the treatment given to foreign investors and their investment at the stage of investment admission is the same as that given to domestic investors and their investments.