What is attracting global investors behind the surge in foreign investment in China?

　　This year’s government work report once again emphasized the need to “increase efforts to attract foreign investment.”

Since the beginning of the new year, new trends in foreign-invested projects have continued, and many foreign investors have stepped up their pace of business expansion in China.

　　In January this year, the actual amount of foreign capital used in my country increased by 20.4% month-on-month, and foreign investors invested in and established 4,588 new foreign-funded enterprises in China. Against the background of continuous growth last year, the year-on-year increase was as high as 74.4%.

Foreign investment in China is enthusiastic.

　　Behind the continuous increase in foreign investment, what is attracting global investors?

What changes are taking place in the frontier areas of high-level openness?

Institutional opening-up accelerates, new areas bring new opportunities

　　When the reporter came to the Lingang New Area of ​​the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, a special work team composed of more than 20 people was working hard to compile the country's first batch of cross-border data classification and hierarchical management lists.

This long list, involving more than ten scenarios and hundreds of data fields in the four major fields of automobiles, shipping, finance, and biomedicine, must be compiled before the end of March.

Lu Sen, Director of the Data Department of the Lingang New Area Management Committee of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone:

Multinational enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises have very urgent needs for cross-border data. The list is compiled in basically every field and is updated once a week.

We hope that our list can be truly actionable, sensible, and implementable.

　　Staff told reporters that in the past, cross-border data flow required complex approval procedures, which has become a common blockage problem faced by multinational companies.

Relying on this batch of lists, companies can operate according to the diagram, combined with in-process and post-event supervision, to make cross-border data more secure, convenient and orderly.

Tang Hao, full-time deputy director of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone Lingang New Area Management Committee:

When it matures, we will gradually expand the scope of the list and divide it into 10 major industries, and then compile an important data catalog simultaneously on this basis. It's a negative list job.

Experiment with systems and explore new paths for cross-border data across the country.

　　High-level "stress tests" like this are being accelerated in many areas of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone.

At the end of last year, the "Overall Plan for Comprehensively Aligning with International High-Standard Economic and Trade Rules to Promote High-level Institutional Opening of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone" was released, proposing to accelerate the expansion of opening up of service trade, improve the level of liberalization and facilitation of trade in goods, and take the lead in implementing high standards 80 measures in 7 aspects, including digital trade rules, lead a new round of high-level opening up with institutional opening.

　　In the Hainan Free Trade Port, 2,000 kilometers away, another "experimental field" for institutional openness, the "tough battle" for customs closure operations has begun.

With the expansion and efficiency of the "zero-tariff" policy, the Hainan Free Trade Port's "zero-tariff" policy currently enjoys a value of 20.2 billion yuan in goods and a tax reduction of 3.81 billion yuan.

The flow of goods is smoother, the flow of people is more convenient, and a series of open policies are being transformed into real "attractions."

Zhang Bin, Director of the Hainan Provincial Department of Commerce:

Hainan now provides visa-free services to guests from 59 countries.

Hainan's international tourism has increased by more than 50% since last year. The development of tourism has also driven Hainan's aviation service industry to more than triple, driving Hainan's aircraft leasing business to increase by more than 50%.

　　Across the country, a series of opening-up measures have been implemented at an accelerated pace: the national negative list for foreign investment access has been reduced from 93 items to 31 items; restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector will be completely lifted this year, and access to service industries such as telecommunications and medical care has been continuously relaxed.

China's door to opening up is opening wider and wider, allowing more foreign-funded enterprises to embrace new opportunities in China's large market.

Cui Weijie, deputy director of the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce

:

China has launched more than 110 reform pilot measures, and has clearly and promptly summarized mature experience to replicate and promote it on a larger scale. It has continuously increased stress testing and accelerated the advancement of rules, regulations, and management. , standards and other institutional openness.

Create a good business environment, improve the allocation of global factor resources, and help accelerate the formation of a new development pattern.

The central and western regions have become a “new choice” for foreign investment

　　Through deepening institutional exploration, not only is the cross-border flow of goods becoming more efficient, virtual elements such as data will also flow more conveniently across borders.

While opening up new areas brings more new opportunities for cooperation, my country's central and western regions are also changing from "defenders" to "forwards" in opening up, and are increasingly favored by foreign investment.

　　In the Xinjiang Pilot Free Trade Zone, which was unveiled just over 100 days ago, new institutions and new orders are pouring in at an accelerated pace. Investors from all over the world are also taking concrete actions to respond to China’s sincerity in expanding opening up.

　　In just over three months, this textile machinery manufacturing company in the Xinjiang Pilot Free Trade Zone not only welcomed six new customers from Central Asia and other countries, but also received a 20% increase in new orders.

Yang Qiaoyun, deputy general manager of an intelligent machinery company in Xinjiang:

Since the establishment of the Xinjiang Free Trade Zone, the textile machinery purchase and sales contracts we have signed with countries co-building the “Belt and Road” have reached 200 million.

　　At the same time, more than 3,000 companies completed registration in the Xinjiang Pilot Free Trade Zone, and new institutions emerged one after another: the China-Uzbekistan New Drug "Belt and Road" Joint Laboratory was launched, and the first cross-border e-commerce display and trading center in southern Xinjiang Start operations.

　　The China-Europe freight trains that run across the Eurasian continent are also constantly improving traffic efficiency and pressing the "accelerator button" for high-level opening up.

During this period, Xinjiang’s Horgos Port ushered in an export trade boom.

A series of China-Europe freight trains loaded with daily necessities, machinery parts, textile fabrics and other goods departed from the Horgos Railway Port, bound for European and Central Asian countries.

Yan Gang, Deputy Commissioner of Horgos Customs:

This year, Horgos Customs will focus on the construction of smart customs to achieve seamless connection between enterprise declaration, customs supervision, and railway reloading.

The transit time of block trains at the port has been reduced by more than 60% compared with previous years. The number of block trains passing through the Horgos port every day has remained at more than 20, a year-on-year increase of 7%.

　　Today, all-round and multi-level open platforms are accelerating the pace of opening up in the central and western regions, driving more and more multinational companies to step up their deployment in the central and western regions.

　　In Liangjiang New District, Chongqing, Hitachi Energy's global transformer intelligent manufacturing base has officially been put into operation, making it one of the largest and most intelligent production bases in the world.

　　In Xuchang, Henan, the project of the German Eberspächer Group to produce 500,000 sets of automobile exhaust systems per year was officially launched. It only took 92 days from inspection, contract signing to trial production.

　　In Xi'an, Shaanxi, the Kazakhstan Xi'an Terminal project was officially put into operation and will be built into Kazakhstan's trade and logistics distribution center in China.

　　The intensive implementation of foreign investment projects reflects the continuous strengthening of "magnetic attraction": In 2023, seven central and western provinces, including Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Hubei, have achieved double-digit actual utilization of foreign investment. growth rate.

The vast central and western regions are increasingly becoming new “highlands” for attracting foreign investment.

Foreign investment with high technological content "improving quality and shifting gears"

　　The huge opportunities for investing in China are not only hidden in new fields and new regions, but also in the modern industrial system that is constantly upgrading and iterating.

At present, my country's manufacturing industry is accelerating the transformation and upgrading of high-end, intelligent, and green industries. Foreign investment in China continues to focus on high technology and accelerates its integration into the high-quality development pattern.

　　In the production workshop of Toyota Auto Parts Company in Changshu, Jiangsu, two fifth-generation hybrid vehicle drive transmission assembly lines are operating at full capacity and ramping up production.

Since last year, as the sales of new energy vehicles have increased, the company has adjusted its production layout in a timely manner and built the first fifth-generation hybrid vehicle drive transmission production line. The maximum monthly production capacity has reached 15,000 units, and a hybrid transmission is off the production line in an average of 98 seconds. , refresh the production speed.

Koji Shirota, General Manager of Toyota Motor (Changshu) Parts Co., Ltd.:

Last month our new production line, the second assembly line of the fifth-generation hybrid vehicle drive transmission, was officially put into production.

The production capacity of the first line put into production last year is 180,000 units/year.

This year, with the commissioning of the second line, an additional 360,000 units/year of production capacity was added, bringing the total production capacity to 540,000 units/year.

　　Precisely because of its optimism about the large market for new energy vehicles, this foreign-funded company has intensively invested in China, and continues to optimize its production lines and promote product updates and iterations in the direction of electrification, high-end, and technology.

In the next step, they will continue to increase research and development innovation and further enrich product types.

　　Accelerating integration into China's industrial upgrading is also becoming a common consensus among foreign-funded enterprises.

In Beijing, the total number of foreign-funded R&D centers has exceeded 100.

In Guangdong, more than half of foreign investment in the manufacturing sector has been invested in high-tech manufacturing.

Researchers who have been paying attention to foreign investment for a long time have also obtained such two curves from the foreign investment data in the past five years.

Luo Rong, Director of the Institute of Foreign Economics of the China Academy of Macroeconomics:

The proportion of China's high-tech industries in the actual use of foreign investment has been increasing year by year in the past five years. The proportion of R&D investment in operating income of industrial enterprises above designated size with foreign investment is also An upward trend.

This shows that more foreign-funded enterprises are participating in the creation of China's advanced industrial chain and the upgrading of the innovation chain, and are paying more attention to high value-added links such as R&D and services.

　　The latest report released by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade shows that nearly 70% of the foreign-funded companies surveyed are still optimistic about the Chinese market in the next five years. This proportion has increased by about 1.8 percentage points month-on-month. The proportion of foreign-funded companies surveyed who believe that the attractiveness of the Chinese market has increased or remained the same. More than 90%.

(CCTV News Client)