After withdrawing from China over a year ago overseas investors are slowly returning on signs of the country’s economic recovery.

In Qingdao, one of China’s major port cities, the number of overseas investors coming to make investment in Chengyang district has been on the rise since June.

Li Guixi, deputy head of the Chengyang district government, said that 146 foreign-funded projects were approved in the first ten months of 2009, and involved contracted foreign investment totaling 280 million U.S. dollars, which is up 2.2 percent year on year.

In July, Swarovski, the world’s leading producer of precision-cut crystal (image left), invested more than 100 million U.S. dollars in Chengyang to build its first factory outside Europe.