A ship loads containers at a terminal in Qingdao, Shandong province. China is poised to open up its market further to foreign investment. [Photo/China Daily]

According to the official data of a city in East China's Jiangsu province, the foreign investment it attracted rose dramatically to $547 million in 2009, $1.05 billion in 2010 and $1.61 billion in 2010. Year-on-year increases of 35.1 percent, 92.2 percent and 54.1 percent, respectively.

However, these remarkable figures have been artificially inflated as some grassroots governments in the city have pretended to attract foreign investment by organizing "designated persons" to transfer US dollars from overseas into special accounts and then reporting it to the higher authorities as overseas investment in the local economy.

According to a recent media report, it has been confirmed that at least 31 grassroots governments in the city have been involved in fabricating foreign investments in this way.

Bringing in overseas investment has long been regarded as an important way for governments to boost local economic development. Some local governments have even gone to extremes by giving officials foreign investment quotas they have to meet, with their ability to attract foreign investment part of their performance evaluation. Such being the case some local officials have resorted to cheating.

The exposure of this illusory foreign investment raises the question: How much of the so-called foreign investments in the country are authentic and how much has been fabricated by officials to boost their performance evaluations? And thus how many officials have been promoted because of something they never did?

Such imaginary foreign investments will not promote the development of the local economy, but only waste limited local finances. Any involved officials and local governments should be held accountable for such malpractice and more importantly, such kind of unhealthy approach to foreign investments should be curbed.