DALIAN, June 16 -- Northeast China's Dalian, a port city in Liaoning Province, inked 24 foreign investment projects worth around 27 billion yuan (about 3.79 billion U.S. dollars) during the city's business promotion conference, which started on Thursday and concluded on Friday.

Covering high-end manufacturing and modern service industries, the foreign-funded projects involve 10 countries and regions including Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium.

"Dalian boasts a good industrial foundation. Our group started business in the city as early as 2008. In the future, we plan to expand our investment, providing digitalization services for local manufacturers to help optimize their energy usage and drive upgrades and renovation in traditional manufacturing enterprises," said Liu Yang with the northern China region branch of Aden France, a French manufacturing company.

By the end of last year, Dalian had introduced more than 17,000 foreign-invested companies and a total of 287 projects had been invested in the city by 124 Fortune 500 enterprises. Last year, the port city also saw its record high of foreign investment in actual use over the decade, indicative of its vitality in development.