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Zhenshi Holding Group in Jiaxing city's Tongxiang, Zhejiang province, focuses on the development pattern of "going global", and further boosts its internationalization drive. [Photo/Official WeChat account: txsw1111]

Tongxiang, a county-level city in Jiaxing, East China's Zhejiang province, accelerated its pace of going global, with new breakthroughs made in overseas investment in 2019, according to statistics released by the Jiaxing bureau of commerce.

Tongxiang's outbound foreign direct investment totaled $1.8 billion last year, growing by 211 percent year-on-year, the highest in Jiaxing. Tongxiang attracted 10 newly approved overseas investment enterprises last year, and Zhenshi Holding Group and Huayou Cobalt Company were included on the list of the top 30 Zhejiang transnational private enterprises in 2019.

In recent years, many Tongxiang companies have gone to great lengths to explore transnational business operations, offering great support for domestic firms to promote internationalization.

In 2019, the Ministry of Commerce approved a project in Indonesia with $1.28 billion of investment from Tongxiang-based private mining company Huayou Cobalt, setting a new record for Jiaxing's outbound investment.

The Indonesia project is expected to be put into operation in 2020 and mainly involves the non-ferrous production and trade of metals and metallic minerals. So far, Huayou Cobalt has established branches in countries like South Africa, Australia and South Korea.

The fast globalization pace of Tongxiang's leading enterprises has led to a continuous promotion of the city's opening-up, and contributed to the upgrading and transformation of local firms.

Additionally, the city has encouraged local firms to actively take part in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and saw robust growth in its foreign trade with countries and regions involved in the BRI, which has become an important platform for Tongxiang enterprises seeking a higher level of opening-up.

According to the statistics, Tongxiang had seven projects invested in countries and regions involved in the BRI last year, with the investment volume accounting for 88.92 percent of Jiaxing's total amount.