Opening branches and building global flagship factories, more and more foreign-funded enterprises take root in western China——
New opportunities in the west, foreign investment rushing to deploy (decoding new trends in foreign investment ③)
Not long ago, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting a New Pattern of Western Development in the New Era" ("Opinions"), which made comprehensive arrangements for accelerating the formation of a new pattern of Western Development and promoting high-quality development in the western region. Among them, "Led by the joint construction of the'Belt and Road' to increase the opening up of the western region" has attracted great attention from foreign-funded enterprises.
The reporter learned during the interview that large-scale foreign-funded enterprises generally have a large number of business layouts in the western region of China. The release of the "Opinions" has strengthened the majority of foreign-funded enterprises' confidence in investing in the western region. In practice, many foreign-funded enterprises are speeding up seizing new opportunities with practical actions.
Great potential, foreign investment continues to cultivate
Affected by the spread of the global epidemic, the world economy is facing a huge impact. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development predicts that this year's global foreign direct investment flow is likely to hit the lowest record since 2005.
However, the "2020 Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index Report" released earlier by Kearney, a world-renowned management consulting company, shows that China ranks first among all developing countries and is also among the top ten destinations for foreign direct investment in the world. The only emerging market country.
On the business map of foreign companies, western China occupies an increasingly important position.
"After learning that Wuhan Leishenshan Hospital needed fire detection alarms, Honeywell urgently provided more than 2,100 smart wireless stand-alone fire detection alarms to Leishenshan Hospital. Confirmation, reconciliation, delivery and commissioning were only used before and after It took 4 days. This batch of fire detection alarms from the Xi’an plant has effectively helped the Leishenshan Hospital to operate wisely and stably.” He Jun, the general manager of Honeywell’s Xi’an plant, said of the highlights of operations this year.
He Jun said that after 25 years of development, Honeywell's Xi’an plant has become one of the company’s important production bases in the company’s global supply chain, integrating first-class R&D, manufacturing and services. The main products involve fire protection, security and personal protection. Supplies field. Over the years, Honeywell’s Xi’an plant has actively supported the construction of major projects such as subways, airports, and wind power in the western region. Since the beginning of this year, the factory has been able to quickly restore production capacity, thanks to the timely and effective service and coordination provided by relevant departments of Xi’an High-tech Zone.
"Honeywell is an early group of multinational companies that participated in the development and construction of the western region. The "Opinions" proposes to encourage Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi'an and other international gateway hub cities. We have layouts in these key western cities to radiate the entire western region. Regional market demand.” Zhang Yufeng, President of Honeywell China, told reporters that Honeywell is currently actively participating in the intelligent construction of Xi’an and Chongqing. He believes that the company can provide smart operations in buildings, efficient aircraft flight, and excellent factories. Obtaining more business opportunities in operations and worker safety operations.
Bayer, headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany, is also one of the large multinational companies that actively deploys in western China.
Gao Yong, Vice President of Public Affairs of Bayer China, told this reporter: "Western China is an important area for Bayer to conduct business and production in China. For example, we have a health consumer product factory in Kunming, Yunnan, and two joint ventures in Zhangye, Gansu. Production and processing plant. At present, Bayer's business development and production operations in the western region are relatively smooth."
Gao Yong said that the "Opinions" demonstrate China's determination to persist in opening up and balance regional economic development. Among them, the "Opinions" emphasizes the continuous improvement of innovation and development capabilities and the promotion of the formation of a modern industrial system, which are highly consistent with Bayer's development philosophy. "The western region of China has great potential for development. Bayer is working hard to use its expertise in the fields of healthcare and agriculture to contribute to the rise of the western region and seek greater development in China."
Sufficient support, optimized business environment
Build inland open highlands and develop and open hubs, strengthen the construction of large open channels, build inland multi-level open platforms, and build several industrial transfer demonstration zones in the western region... Regarding how to increase the opening up of the western region, the "Opinions" give a comprehensive Directional support measures.
The country strongly supports it, and the western region has also worked hard.
The "Opinions" are important strategic deployments made by the Party Central Committee and the State Council in the face of continuous changes in the external environment and the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, guided by new development concepts, and coordinated regional development as a path. 36 specific opinions Covering innovation, industry, opening up, ecology, people's livelihood and other aspects, it provides strong institutional support and policy support for Tianfu New Area to build a new highland for opening up in the western region." The relevant person in charge of the Chengdu Management Committee of Sichuan Tianfu New Area told this newspaper The reporter said.
The person in charge introduced that in order to ensure that foreign-funded enterprises resume work and production, the new district has established an emergency mechanism to ensure that services to foreign-invested enterprises will not be dropped 24 hours a day, fully cover 151 foreign-invested enterprises within the jurisdiction, and understand the difficulties of foreign-funded enterprises and personnel. Give feedback to relevant departments in a timely manner, increase coordination and resolution, assist logistics, water treatment and other people's livelihood protection enterprises as soon as possible, and assist foreign-funded enterprises to resume work.
"We are a foreign-owned company. The core team has more than 10 years of theoretical and engineering practice in the field of natural language processing and machine learning, and has conducted joint research with the Columbia University Information Processing Laboratory. Tianfu New Area is located in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and The area at the intersection of the Silk Road Economic Belt has great potential for development. In particular, the special policies and thoughtful services implemented by the Tianfu New Area for the introduction of talents have provided a great boost to the development of the enterprise." Jiang Ling, CEO of Chengdu Xiaoduo Technology Co., Ltd. Say.
In Chongqing, more than 10 foreign investment stabilization policies issued by the government have also made foreign companies very heartwarming.
According to the relevant person in charge of Ford Motor Company's Greater China region, Changan Ford, a joint venture of Ford Motor Company, has 3 vehicle manufacturing plants, 1 engine plant, 1 transmission plant and 1 product research institute in Chongqing. The Chongqing production base is already Ford's largest production base in the world except Detroit, USA.
"Faced with the epidemic this year, the Chongqing Municipal Government has made fruitful efforts to help Changan Ford and other joint ventures and foreign-funded enterprises to resume work and production. With the support of all parties, Changan Ford has gradually resumed production from February 10. At the end of the month, it has returned to the level of production before the epidemic, and launched the first domestically-made luxury SUV model "Adventurer" under the Lincoln brand produced in Chongqing as planned, which is well received by the market and consumers." The person in charge said.
The person in charge further stated that the "Opinions" laid a solid foundation for the formation of a new pattern in the development of the western region, and better adapted to the current domestic and international development situations. Ford Motor's long-term plan for cultivating western China will not change. "In the future, Ford will transform more innovative achievements in Chongqing, and promote more mid-to-high-end models to land in Chongqing. In particular, it will strive to build smart networked vehicles and the construction of smart cities and smart transportation in Chongqing to meet better Infrastructure construction to promote the development of innovation and technological power."
Seek long-term and share development opportunities
From the establishment of sales outlets to the establishment of branches/subsidiaries; from the establishment of offices to large-scale investment and construction of factories... Nowadays, more and more foreign-funded enterprises have begun to take root in western China and seek longer-term development.
The Gardner Aviation Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom, is a leading international aerospace component production and system integration large-scale multinational enterprise. It operates a variety of specifications of aerospace components manufacturing, processing, assembly, and complete sets of integration businesses. It is one of the top 20 aerospace precision parts manufacturers in the world, and it is also the industry's leading large-scale fast workshop service provider. In recent days, the company's global flagship plant in Shuangliu, Chengdu, is actively debugging equipment and conducting trial production.
"Under the background of Airbus's localization of the entire industrial chain, the task of Gardner's global flagship factory is to support the production of Airbus's assembly line in Tianjin, as well as the rapid development of China's commercial aviation manufacturing industry. Gardner Aviation's new plant is located in western China and located in Chengdu Shuangliu because the management believes that western China has great development potential in the future, especially with the support of the development of western China.” Gardner Aerospace Holding Group Director Wei Yu said.
In Wei Yu's view, in the past, transportation was one of the main factors restricting the development of the western region; now, with the continuous improvement and dense network of transportation infrastructure such as roads, railways, and aviation, the transportation advantage of the western region is catching up with the eastern region. Coastal areas. On this basis, the resource advantages, competitiveness advantages, and industry development advantages of the western region have gradually emerged, attracting many high-quality resources to "westward". "From Xi'an to Chengdu and then to Guiyang, the manufacturing industry in the western region, especially the aviation manufacturing industry, has formed a good foundation and has a broad space for development. In the future, the western region will undoubtedly become the main front for the transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry."
Mi Shanshan, deputy director of the Management Committee of Chengdu Shuangliu West Airport Economic Development Zone, said that the "Opinions" will help solve the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development in the western region, promote land-sea internal and external linkages and mutual aid between the east and the west, and help strengthen The endogenous growth momentum in the western region is a huge opportunity for foreign-funded enterprises and local governments. "We will take the construction of industrial functional zones as the starting point, take the optimization of the business environment as the number one project to promote high-quality economic development, and use'nanny services' to improve service efficiency, and continue to create a new and better business environment for foreign-funded enterprises. ." Mi Shanshan said.
Pang Chaoran, an associate researcher at the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, believes that while maintaining the sustainable development of the east, China is accelerating the leap-forward development of the inland regions and promoting the coordinated development of the east, middle and west. Pang Chaoran said that despite the upward trend of domestic labor costs, China's labor resource structure has gradually shifted from a demographic dividend to a human capital dividend and talent dividend, which is more conducive to the development of technology-intensive and knowledge-intensive foreign-funded enterprises in China.
On July 16, the Chinese economy ushered in the "semi-annual report". The 3.2% economic growth rate in the second quarter provided a boost for the global economy. "In the second quarter, economic growth turned from negative to positive, with major indicators recovering growth, economic operation steadily recovering, basic people's livelihood protection was strong, market expectations were generally positive, and the overall social development situation was stable." said Liu Aihua, spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics.
This is undoubtedly another piece of good news for foreign-funded companies that come to China to invest and start businesses.