A total of six cities in northern Guangdong Province attracted 260 million US dollars of investment by Hong Kong business people at an investment promotion activity held Monday.

Guangdong's mountainous northern region, relatively underdeveloped compared with the province's south, which is nearer to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, possesses distinctive advantages of rich resources and low labor cost, said an official with the Guangdong provincial government.

Vice-mayors from Shaoguan, Meizhou, Zhaoqing, Qingyuan, Heyuan and Yunfu cities introduced their investment environment to over 200 Hong Kong business people present and discussed cooperation opportunities.

All together, contracts were signed for 27 cooperative projects between Hong Kong investors and the six city governments, with a combined value of 260 million US dollars.

In September this year, the Guangdong provincial government initiated the policy of accelerating the development of the mountainous north, which would provide more favorable conditions for Hong Kong investors.

Those six cities generated a total GDP of 135 billion yuan (16. 4 billion US dollars) in 2001.

(xinhua)

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