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Businesses from overseas are turning their eyes from booming eastern Chinese cities to the less-developed western regions, as they will start a forum on trade cooperation with counterparts from northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in Yinchuan Tuesday.

The forum, titled "Ningxia - France International Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum," will be held from Oct. 18 to 19 in Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia, organizers said Monday.

By then, 21 foreign - mostly French - businesses and more than 100 businesses from Ningxia will send delegates to the forum.

"The Chinese businesses will have trade dialogues with foreign counterparts in the areas of city planning, infrastructure construction, energy, mineral resources, industry and agriculture, " said Hei Liangjie, director of the Ningxia Regional Commerce Department.

The trade volume between Ningxia and France stood at 10 million US dollars in 2004, dropping by about 12 percent compared with that of 2003.

This year, the Ningxia regional government hopes to use the opportunity of the "China-France Culture Year" to boost trade exchanges between the two countries, he said.

For this goal, the Ningxia Regional Commerce Department, the Ningxia Committee for Promotion of International Trade, the China Trade News Publishing House, and the France-based Europe-China Committee for Promotion of Economy, Trade and Culture, jointly launched the forum, he said.

"We hope Ningxia businesses can, through this forum, go outside China into France, the European Union and the whole world," he said. "We also hope the forum can make foreign businesses better understand Ningxia, and boost their investment in Ningxia, thus achieving a win-win result."

Floch Jean-Michal, supervisor for business operation at the China branch of the Britain-based company of Metal, said China is drawing more and more investment from abroad with its increasingly vital role in the world these years. However, the foreign investment mainly went to big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, he said.

Metal China would like to input its investment in western China's regions like Ningxia, witnessing the rapid growth of that city since China initiated the policy of greatly developing the western regions a few years ago, Floch said.

"I believe that the investment in Ningxia will bring a huge profit in the future," he said.