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Analysed by business sector, banks and deposit-taking companies attracted the largest share (42% or $285.5 billion) of the total net assets attributable to inward direct investments in the non-manufacturing sectors at the end of 1994.
"This reflects the important role of Hong Kong as a financial centre in the region," said Mr Ho.
Inward direct investments through holding companies was another salient feature and these accounted for 27% ($187.3 billion) of the total.
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"The top company of an enterprise is taken as the reporting unit in the survey. Since detailed data on the subsidiaries are not available, the statistics on inward direct investments at sectoral level can only be based on the business activity of the top
company.
"Thus, the present statistics do not necessarily reflect the sectoral distribution of net assets attributable to inward direct investments," cautioned Mr Ho.
Statistics on inward direct investments in the non-manufacturing sectors were released for the first time. Data were collected from a new survey of external investments in non-manufacturing undertakings conducted by the Census and Statistics Department.
The Industry Department has been conducting a similar survey in respect of the manufacturing sector.
Based on the findings of these two complementary surveys, the total value of net assets attributable to inward direct investments in the manufacturing and non- manufacturing sectors taken together amounted to $730.2 billion at the end of 1994.
This represented an increase of 8% when compared with the amount at the end of 1993. The share of the manufacturing sector in the overall total was around 6% at the end of both 1993 and 1994.
In terms of the total value of net assets attributable to inward direct investments in the manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors taken together, the United Kingdom, Japan, China and the United States of America were the four largest investor countries, accounting for some 80% of the total net assets at the end of both 1993 and 1994.
In the 1994 round of the survey, data on the stock of inward direct investments were also collected.
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