The San Gabriel Valley and western San Bernardino County are seeing healthy economic growth, and Chinese investment is playing an increasingly bigger role in the region’s vitality.

That message was conveyed Wednesday at an economic forecast held at the Sheraton Fairplex Conference Center in Pomona.

Co-hosted by the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership and Cal Poly Pomona’s College of Business Administration, the event featured a variety of speakers, including Robert Kleinhenz, executive director of economic research at Beacon Economics, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is making a 2018 bid for governor of California.

“For the most part, throughout the region we’re looking at unemployment that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 percent at the present time,” Kleinhenz said. “And this is great news after looking back several years and seeing how far we’ve come.”

The Inland Empire saw 3.5 percent year-over-year employment growth in March. Los Angeles County, which tends to have slower growth rates, grew by 1.7 percent during the same period.

But when combined, the two regions accounted for about a third of the annual job gains that occurred in California, according to Kleinhenz.

“In March, California added 346,000 jobs and we added about 110,000 jobs here in these two areas,” he said. "Taxable sales, which is an expression of the purchasing power of people and businesses in the local economy, continues to advance in both regions. It’s 3 percent for San Bernardino County and over 5 percent for Los Angeles County. These are good signs that the local economy and the purchasing power of local households is on the rise.”

Beacon Economics is forecasting annual employment growth of 0.8 percent for the San Gabriel Valley in 2018 and 3.3 percent in western San Bernardino County.

Demand for homes in both regions has been sustained by low interest rates, Kleinhenz said, but the industry has been hampered by limited inventories, high underwriting standards and large down payment requirements.

Steven Hendryx, senior vice president of a China-based immigration agency called the Henry Group and an investor of Chinese capital into U.S. real estate development, said China has invested nearly $1 trillion in overseas investment. About a quarter of that was official foreign direct investment. But a significant portion of the rest was private money, and much of it was invested in single-family homes here in Southern California.

Some Chinese people are investing here for asset reallocation, Hendryx said, while others are investing with the hope of getting green cards so their children can attend school in the U.S. Chinese manufacturers are likewise looking to promote their brands in Southern California and tap into new markets, he said.

Kin Hui, CEO of Singpoli Capital Corp., a division of Arcadia-based Singpoli Group, said his company’s investments are in real estate, media, hospitality and financial services.

“So many people say, ‘Are you a Chinese company?’” he said. “But I tell them I’m a Chinese-American company. We work with different people of different Chinese cultures. What we’re really doing is collaborating with American culture.”

Singpoli has a number of real estate projects that have been completed or are underway in Southern California. In Pasadena, for example, the Singpoli owns and operates the dusit D2 Hotel Constance Pasadena on East Colorado Blvd. That boutique facility is currently being expanded to include more rooms, a multi-level parking structure, swimming pool, spa and fitness center.

The company additionally owns and manages an 11-story office building at 2 N. Lake Ave. in Pasadena, and Singpoli is gearing up to build a $60 million mixed-use project at the corner of Lake Avenue and Union Street in Pasadena that will include a 165-room hotel and a condominium complex with 60 units.

Villaraigosa said global trade and investment are crucial for the Golden State.

“We want foreign direct investments from China,” he said. “We want a trade agreement that has now made Mexico our No. 2, and sometimes No. 3, trading partner. We’ve all benefitted from opening up our doors.”

Southern California, he said, is well positioned to capitalize on the every-increasing trend of globalization.

“The next governor is going to have to realize that we’ve got assets in this state,” he said. “We have a door to Asia, we have a door to Latin America. We have the largest Asian-American population in the United States and the largest Latin-American population. I used to brag that we have the largest Persian population from Iran, the largest Armenian and Filipino populations … we come from every corner of the earth, and we come here. Let’s take advantage of it.”