BEIJING, Jan. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- During the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005), China started to encourage domestic companies to invest overseas and cooperate with counterparts in other countries and regions.

    The country has made remarkable progress in implementing its "going global" strategy, which was first put forward by the government during the 10th Five-Year Plan period, the Ministry of Commerce said.

    During the past five years, China set up some overseas production bases of crude oil and mineral resources, helping the country to ease the energy and raw material shortage caused by the soaring economy.

    During the past five years, China had more than 30,000 enterprises engaged in multinational services, more than 1,800 enterprises with overseas contracted projects and 600 enterprises with overseas labor cooperation, the ministry said.

    In 2004, 16 Chinese companies were listed in world's Top 500, and 49 Chinese enterprises were among the world's Top 225 international contractors, according to figures from the ministry.

    By the end of the 10th Five-Year Plan period, more than 10,000 Chinese-funded enterprises had been set up overseas, with signed contracted projects worth 181.1 billion U.S. dollars and signed labor cooperation volume of 40.1 billion dollars, according to theministry. Enditem