(File photo)

Suzhou New District (SND), one of the first national high-tech zones, held a signing ceremony for 53 key projects in the second quarter, involving a total investment of 23.71 billion yuan, Jiangsu media reported on Jul 7.

They included 15 projects that have investment from six countries and regions, such as Japan, Canada, the United States and Norway.

Mao Wei, deputy secretary of the district’s Party Working Committee and also head of the district, said SND added 33 foreign-funded projects from January to May and the paid-in investment totaled $623 million, up 147.2 percent year-on-year.

With a total investment of 6.6 billion yuan, the new foreign-funded projects included the project expansion of Fujifilm, a Fortune 500 company, the investment increase of medical giant Thermo Fisher Scientific, and a semiconductor project of Brooks from the United States.

Jiang Nanqiu, general manager of Suzhou RF Top Electronic Communications, said the company has decided to increase investment to expand production, enlarging the workshop space from 9,000 square meters to 27,000 square meters, with a focus on the research, development and production of ceramic components for mobile communication systems.

On the same day, the district’s 87 projects with a total investment of 52.92 billion yuan marked the start or completion. This included 28 projects each with an investment of over 500 million yuan, 15 projects each with an investment of one billion yuan.