Executives of multinational companies frequently come to China. From January to February, 7,160 new foreign-funded enterprises were established nationwide.
The “magnetic attraction” of the Chinese market
From March 24 to 25, the 2024 Annual Meeting of the China Development Forum was held in Beijing. This annual meeting with the theme of "Sustainable Development of China" attracted global attention. More than 110 guests from international organizations, Fortune 500 companies, and the global business community focused on key and cutting-edge issues in China's development and world development. Constructive communication.
Since the beginning of the new year, many foreign investors have accelerated their pace of business expansion in China. Data recently released by the Ministry of Commerce show that in the first two months of this year, 7,160 new foreign-invested enterprises were established across the country, a year-on-year increase of 34.9%, reaching the highest level in the past five years. Why are multinational companies investing intensively in China? How will China’s new development opportunities benefit the world? The reporter conducted interviews on these issues.
Opening new stores, launching new products, and holding first exhibitions, foreign-funded enterprises are accelerating their deployment in areas such as technological innovation and modern services in China.
At 7 pm on March 21, the Apple Store in Jing'an Temple Square in Shanghai officially opened. Apple CEO Tim Cook personally opened the door of the new store to welcome Chinese consumers. This is Apple's largest retail store in Asia, with a total investment of over 83.4 million yuan, second only to the global Apple flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York.
"China has rich human resources and strong innovation vitality. It is an important market and key supply chain partner for Apple. Apple will continue to be committed to long-term development in China and continue to increase investment in China's supply chain, R&D and sales." Cook Expressed confidence and expectations for China's development and investment in China.
It’s not just Cook. Since this year, Exxon Mobil Chairman and CEO Woodron, GlaxoSmithKline Global CEO Emma Wei, Swiss Nestle Group CEO Mark Schneider and other multinational corporate executives They come to China one after another to open new stores, launch new products, and hold first exhibitions. There are also many senior executives who choose China as the first stop for their cross-border business visits.
"The main reason why senior executives of foreign-funded companies visit China intensively is that multinational companies are optimistic about the Chinese market and hope to seek new opportunities for further development in China." Nie Pingxiang, a researcher at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, believes that my country has entered a new stage of high-quality development , more and more multinational companies are accelerating their deployment in areas such as technological innovation, modern services, mid-to-high-end manufacturing, digitalization and greening, and are fully integrated into China's industrial upgrading. Among them, some are optimistic about China's high-tech development prospects, some are increasing their presence in the medical and health market, and some are targeting new tracks in future industries such as new energy. Multinational companies are increasing investment in core projects in China.
On February 18, the first working day after the Chinese New Year holiday, the Guangdong Provincial High-Quality Development Conference was held in Shenzhen. Tan Ranque, China Chairman of ExxonMobil (China) Investment Co., Ltd., said at the meeting that ExxonMobil has invested more than 30 billion yuan in the Huizhou Ethylene Phase I project in the Daya Bay Petrochemical Zone, and will invest another 10 billion yuan this year. , and carried out device debugging and trial operation, preparing to start production at the end of the year.
The investment of real money is a vote of confidence cast by multinational companies in the Chinese market. The Volkswagen Group established the Tianjin branch of Volkswagen (China) Technology Co., Ltd., which is the group's largest R&D center outside its headquarters in Germany; Apple announced additional investment in China to expand its applied research laboratory in Shanghai and expects to A new applied research laboratory was established in Shenzhen; AstraZeneca invested US$475 million to build a new small molecule innovative drug factory in Wuxi; Toyota Motor intensively "increased" in China and built the first fifth-generation hybrid vehicle drive transmission production line to accelerate Promote product updates and iterations.
In what aspects does the "magnetic attraction" of the Chinese market manifest itself? "Enterprises investing abroad need to consider many factors, including the policy stability, economic foundation, investment environment, social environment, etc. of the location where the investment is made. Fluctuations in any of these may bring investment risks. For multinational enterprises, having a good and stable China, with its policy environment and the most complete industrial system in the world, is undoubtedly the best choice." Nie Pingxiang said.
In terms of economic resilience, China's GDP will reach 126 trillion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 5.2%, making it an important engine for global economic growth. From the perspective of market size, our country has a population of more than 1.4 billion, and the middle-income group exceeds 400 million people, which will reach 800 million people in the next ten years. The consumption potential is huge. From the perspective of industrial system, my country has 41 major industrial categories, 207 medium industrial categories, and 666 small industrial categories, forming an independent and complete modern industrial system. It is the only country in the world that has all industrial categories in the United Nations Industrial Classification. From the perspective of development prospects, my country's digitalization and greening processes have been accelerating in recent years, and the total scale of the digital economy ranks second in the world, which will bring new development opportunities to various business entities.
The structure of foreign investment in China continues to be optimized, and the rapid growth of foreign investment in high-tech fields has further driven the continuous optimization of my country's foreign trade structure.
On the morning of February 27, the 38th batch of multinational company regional headquarters and R&D centers, global partners to promote foreign investment certificates and centralized signing ceremony for foreign investment projects were held in Shanghai. 34 regional headquarters of multinational companies, 17 foreign-funded R&D centers, and the first 10 global partners for promoting foreign investment were awarded certificates, and 63 new and increased foreign investment projects were signed together.
The newly recognized regional headquarters and foreign-funded R&D centers of multinational companies come from key industrial fields developed in Shanghai, including leading companies in biomedicine, intelligent manufacturing and other industries. Among them, Panasonic Information Systems (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. has obtained the certification of a foreign-funded R&D center. Zhao Guodong, the company’s general manager, said that its main business is to provide IT solutions to Panasonic Group companies at home and abroad, and to use accumulated experience and technology to expand its business to outside the group. Currently, the Shanghai R&D center’s business includes continuously upgrading manufacturing execution systems, exploring digital transformation and artificial intelligence. “This year, half of our R&D expenses will be invested in the field of AI.”
As my country continues to increase its efforts to open up to the outside world, more and more foreign-funded companies are setting up R&D centers and innovation centers in China. Foreign investment in China has gradually transformed from "manufacturing factories" to "R&D headquarters".
Data from the Shanghai Municipal Commerce Commission shows that as of the end of 2023, Shanghai has recognized a total of 561 foreign-funded R&D centers. Shanghai's foreign-funded R&D centers are mainly concentrated in key development industries such as biomedicine, information technology, automobiles and parts, and chemicals, accounting for more than 60% of the city's foreign-funded R&D centers.
"From an industry perspective, the structure of foreign investment in China continues to be optimized, and foreign investment in high-tech fields has grown rapidly, accounting for an increasing proportion of my country's total foreign investment." Nie Pingxiang listed a set of data to reporters: From 2018 to 2022, my country's high-tech industry utilized foreign investment Maintaining rapid growth, it increased from US$32.1 billion to US$68.3 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 20.8%, much higher than the average growth rate of actual foreign investment during the same period, and its proportion of total actual foreign investment also increased from 23.2% to 36.1%. In 2023, the proportion of investment in high-tech industries will reach 37.4%, an increase of 1.3 percentage points from 2022.
Foreign investment is an important force in participating in Chinese-style modernization and promoting the common prosperity and development of the Chinese economy and the world economy. As an important source of national tax revenue and an important source of domestic employment, foreign-invested enterprises not only inject vitality into the Chinese economy, but also drive the continuous optimization of my country's foreign trade structure.
Nie Pingxiang believes that by attracting foreign investment, my country's electronics, communications, home appliances and other industries have acquired the ability to integrate into the international supply chain in a relatively short period of time, established a diversified pattern of export-oriented labor-intensive industries, and quickly became the world's largest industry. Manufacturing and assembly base. As a result, my country's foreign trade export structure has also realized a transformation from primary products to labor-intensive light industrial products, and then to mechanical and electrical products and advanced technology products, promoting my country's new industrialization construction.
The policy "combination punch" releases development dividends to the international market and continues to bring huge market opportunities to foreign investors
On March 25, local time, the seventh CIIE promotion conference was held in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal; on March 22, local time, the seventh CIIE promotion conference was successfully held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil... The seventh CIIE The global exhibition roadshow is progressing steadily. At present, the contracted exhibition area of the enterprise exhibition exceeds 240,000 square meters, and the progress is faster than the same period in 2023. Nearly 200 Fortune 500 and industry leading companies have signed contracts.
As a "six-time veteran" of the CIIE, the fruit and vegetable brand Dole signed a contract for the seventh CIIE last year in advance, "locking in" a seat. "China is a major fruit consumer, and there is a very high market demand for pears, citrus, melons and other fruits. For us, China is the most important regional market for Dole Asia and ranks first in resource investment." Wang Na, marketing director of Le China, told reporters.
While introducing high-quality foreign fruits to the Chinese market, Dole has also been actively cooperating with local Chinese farmers in recent years. Wang Na introduced that after the team’s selection, quality inspection and quality control, China’s local high-quality fruits will be included in Dole’s fruit array, which will not only generate income for local farmers, but also provide consumers with a better fruit and vegetable experience. "In terms of investment in China, we will build more small-scale processing and distribution centers to cover the radius of key areas and meet the demand for high-quality fruits to be quickly distributed to terminal stores across the country."
Dole's confidence in continuing to expand its investment territory in China stems from the stable and long-term development of China's economy and high-quality development, as well as from my country's market-oriented, legal and international business environment.
"Benefiting from the support of relevant policies, Dole's production and operation in China enjoys discounts and exemptions on land tax, stamp duty and surcharges, and the business environment is friendly and positive." Wang Na said, benefiting from China's strategy of continuing to expand opening-up Measures, especially since China promoted the effective implementation of RCEP, have made the industrial chain and supply chain more closely connected, and regional trade costs have been significantly reduced, providing favorable opportunities for the development of the fresh fruit industry.
China has given foreign investment "reassurance" with concrete policies. Last year, my country released 24 policies and measures to stabilize foreign investment, taking the lead in piloting the integration of relevant international high-standard economic and trade rules in 5 free trade pilot zones and the Hainan Free Trade Port; this year’s government work report proposed to comprehensively cancel restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector and relax Market access for service industries such as telecommunications and medical care; the "Action Plan for Solidly Promoting High-level Opening to the Outside World and Making Greater Efforts to Attract and Utilize Foreign Investment" issued by the State Council not long ago takes pragmatic measures from multiple aspects such as expanding market access and smoothing the flow of innovative factors. Increase efforts to attract foreign investment... With the continuous implementation of macro policies, our country has further released development dividends to the international market.
"This series of measures focuses on difficult and core issues that foreign-funded enterprises are concerned about, including access restrictions, intellectual property rights, government procurement, bidding, standard setting, etc., and plays a very important role in boosting foreign-funded enterprises' confidence in the Chinese market. " Nie Pingxiang said.
On March 23, Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao presided over a roundtable meeting for foreign-invested enterprises in the pharmaceutical industry to communicate policies, understand demands, and solve practical difficulties with foreign-invested enterprises. Global executives from multinational companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Danaher, and Pfizer, as well as representatives from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Association, attended the meeting.
Since July last year, such face-to-face communication has been institutionalized. As of the end of January this year, the Ministry of Commerce had held 16 roundtable meetings for foreign-funded enterprises, with more than 400 foreign-funded enterprises and foreign business associations participating, and more than 300 issues and demands reported at the meetings were resolved. "We have also heard from some foreign-funded enterprises that these activities solve problems on the one hand, and on the other hand they show China's determination to open up and its attitude of welcoming foreign investment. We also see the pragmatic and efficient style of the Chinese government, which strengthens its commitment to the Chinese market and Confidence in China's economy." Wang Wentao said at a press conference of the State Council Information Office.
Walking with China means walking with opportunities, and investing in China will win the future. Currently, China is comprehensively promoting Chinese-style modernization and accelerating the cultivation and development of new productive forces, which will bring endless market opportunities and extremely broad development prospects to domestic and foreign investors.
(Our reporter Shen Dongfang, China Discipline Inspection and Supervision News)