The Beibu Gulf area, in China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, has become a popular place for investors to park their funds, giving an indication of their confidence in Guangxi's future.

Yan Lugen, vice-present of the China Federation of Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs, said he plans to spend 1 billion yuan ($154 million) in the area, around Nanning, Guangxi's capital, on a holiday resort.

Yan, who is from Singapore and has investment projects in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, and Kunming, Yunnan province, said, "It (the Beibu Gulf area) is close to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies and the climate is perfectly suitable for holiday travel."

Yan joined 100 overseas Chinese entrepreneurs from various countries who met in Nanning for a Beibu Gulf investment promotion event sponsored by the Guangxi government and the China Federation of Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs, on May 24.

Previously, some overseas Chinese had already negotiated projects with the Guangxi government that were expected to cost more than 10 billion yuan.

One important reason for overseas investors to come to the Beibu Gulf economic zone is the favorable policies it offers. They were designed for western development, coastal regions, the ethnic group areas, the border region, and for bonded and free trade zones.

Another reason is its proximity to the ASEAN members. The Guangxi economic zone is the only part of China with both land and sea access to ASEAN nations, and is a window on China's opening-up.

The coast along the economic zone stretches for 1,595 km, and, it is meeting point for regional cooperation.

Nanning is the permanent site of the China-ASEAN trade and investment exposition in the economic zone. The port of Qinzhou is open to the outside world, while the city of Dongxing has been designated an experimental development zone for China.

The State approved the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone Development Plan at the beginning of 2008, marking the start of a new era for the gulf region.

During the 11th five-year plan (2006-2010), the region saw an annual GDP growth of 16.3 percent.

Qinzhou's PetroChina refinery and the APP Beihai paper and pulp project went into operation during that period.

And work on western China's first nuclear power plant began in Fangchenggang, while the output value of the Lingang industrial zone in Fangchenggang, as well as the Beihai industrial park, and Qinzhou petrochemical industrial park exceeded 10 billion yuan each.

During the 12th five-year plan (2011-2015), Guangxi is expected to speed up work on the zone, in the logistics, trade, and manufacturing bases and information center for China-ASEAN cooperation.

Guangxi is giving priority to petrochemical, iron and steel, nuclear power, electronic information, manufacturing and new energy projects in the economic zone.

At the same time, it will increase the handling capacity of ports along the gulf and improve its railways, highways, pipelines and shipping in the zone. The handling capacity of ports along the gulf is expected to reach over 336 million tons by 2015, with more than 100 berths that can accommodate 10,000-tonnage vessels.