The scale of my country's absorption of foreign investment hit a record high.

Meng Huating, head of the Foreign Investment Management Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said a few days ago that my country's foreign investment continued to grow steadily last year, and the actual use of foreign capital in RMB exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan for the first time, a year-on-year increase of 6.3% on a comparable basis, and the scale of foreign investment remained at the forefront of the world.

Scale up and structure optimization

　　Faced with the impact of unfavorable factors such as slowing global economic growth and rising investment protectionism, my country has steadily promoted the work of stabilizing foreign investment, not only expanding the scale of foreign investment, but also optimizing the structure and quality of foreign investment, making positive contributions to stabilizing the macroeconomic market.

　　On the one hand, investment in manufacturing has increased significantly.

Last year, the actual use of foreign capital in the manufacturing industry was 323.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 46.1%.

Thanks to the full liberalization of foreign capital access restrictions, the investment in the automobile manufacturing industry increased by 263.8%.

In addition, investment in computer communication manufacturing and pharmaceutical manufacturing increased by 67.3% and 57.9% respectively.

　　On the other hand, the high-tech industry has become an important growth point.

Last year, the actual use of foreign capital in high-tech industries was 444.95 billion yuan, an increase of 28.3%, which further improved the quality of foreign investment.

Among them, investment in high-tech manufacturing and high-tech service industries increased by 49.6% and 21.9% respectively.

Investments in transformation services of scientific and technological achievements, R&D and design services have achieved rapid growth, with growth rates of 35% and 26.4% respectively.

　　The main sources of investment have grown steadily.

South Korea, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan grew by 64.2%, 52.9%, 40.7% and 16.1% respectively.

In terms of regions, investment in China by the European Union, countries along the “Belt and Road” and ASEAN increased by 92.2%, 17.2% and 8.2% respectively.

Strengthening the comprehensive advantages of foreign investment

　　"Platforms such as pilot free trade zones, comprehensive pilot areas for expanding and opening up of the service industry, and national economic development zones are becoming more and more attractive to foreign investment." Bai Ming, deputy director of the International Market Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, said.

Since January 1 last year, the new version of the negative list for foreign investment access in the Pilot Free Trade Zone has been implemented, realizing zero manufacturing entries and continuous expansion of the service industry.

The 21 pilot free trade zones actually used 222.52 billion yuan of foreign capital throughout the year, accounting for 18.1% of the country's total.

　　In terms of regions, foreign investment in the eastern, central and western regions increased in an all-round way, and the actual use of foreign capital increased by 4.7%, 21.9% and 14.1% respectively.

Among the eastern provinces, Jiangsu Province has introduced nearly 200 billion yuan of foreign capital.

Guangdong, Shanghai, Shandong, Zhejiang, and Beijing have attracted more than 100 billion yuan in investment.

Among the central and western provinces, Shanxi, Henan, Guangxi, Hunan and Shaanxi increased by 229.6%, 119.8%, 49.1%, 41.3% and 33.6% respectively.

The investment potential of the central and western regions has been further released.

　　At present, the world economic growth is sluggish, but there are still many favorable factors for my country to absorb foreign capital.

Relevant experts believe that the fundamentals of my country's economic stability and long-term improvement have not changed, and the comprehensive advantages of attracting investment constituted by a super-large-scale market, a complete industrial system, rich human resources, and a continuously optimized business environment are constantly being strengthened. The majority of foreign investors still have a strong desire to invest in China.

Foreign companies will have more sense of gain

　　Recently, a number of international organizations have raised their forecasts for China's economic growth this year.

Economic growth means investment opportunities.

According to a recent survey conducted by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade on more than 160 foreign-funded enterprises and foreign business associations in China, 99.4% of the interviewed foreign-funded enterprises are more confident in the prospects for China's economic development this year, and 98.7% of the interviewed foreign-funded enterprises indicated that they will maintain and expand their presence in China. 89.8% of the interviewed foreign-funded enterprises said they would maintain their industrial chains in China, and 10.2% of foreign-funded enterprises planned to transfer foreign industrial chains to China.

　　In addition, policy superposition effects continue to emerge.

Last year, the new version of the "Catalogue of Industries Encouraging Foreign Investment" was released, and a series of special policies were introduced to promote investment in the manufacturing industry and encourage the development of foreign-invested R&D centers.

It is understood that the Ministry of Commerce will fully promote the implementation of these policies this year, and will introduce another batch of policy measures according to the deployment of the central government.

The superposition of existing policies and incremental policies will bring more sense of gain to foreign-funded enterprises.

　　In the past three years, due to the impact of the epidemic, the cross-border flow of people and logistics have been hindered, which is the most prominent problem encountered by foreign investment.

As the epidemic prevention and control enters a new stage, cross-border exchanges are gradually becoming normal.

"Recently, many places have gone out to attract investment, and I believe that more foreign-funded projects will land in China this year." Meng Huating said.

　　Feng Qiyu (Economic Daily)