The contract value of Hubei’s foreign contracted projects signed in 2021 expanded 10.7 percent year to year to reach 19.81 billion U.S. dollars, ranking first in the country, the Department of Commerce of Hubei Province reported on March 2.

  Out of the total, there were 42 major engineering projects worth over 100 million U.S. dollars each, a year-on-year increase of 16.7 percent.

  These projects mainly focused on power engineering, general construction, industrial construction, transportation, communication engineering, water conservancy construction and other sectors, totally bringing 425 contracted projects valued at 17.39 billion U.S. dollars, a proportion of 87.8 percent of the province’s total.

  Specifically, the projects newly signed in power engineering between Hubei and foreign countries contributed a contract value of 9.89 billion U.S. dollars and a business turnover of 2.27 billion U.S. dollars, 49.9 percent and 33.8 percent of the province’s total respectively.

  The department introduced that Hubei enterprises actually invested 1.06 billion U.S. dollars in real economic fields such as healthcare, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, leasing and business services, as well as information technology in foreign countries last year. The investment in key industries including automobile manufacturing and information technology even witnessed a double growth.

  In addition, labors dispatched from the province to foreign countries recorded 15,531 people in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 24.4 percent, ranking first in China’s central and western regions. Among them, 11,747 people were dispatched for engineering projects while others for labor service cooperation, rising by 20.5 percent and 38.4 percent, respectively. (Source: en.hubei.gov.cn)