China stabilizes foreign investment, starts the year on a sprint

From favorable foreign investment policy release, to new product release to capture new markets, to foreign investment projects press the construction "fast-forward button" - the beginning of the New Year, the government and enterprises are working together to attract and utilize foreign investment with greater efforts, sprinting " The government and enterprises are making a concerted effort to attract and utilize foreign investment with greater vigor at the beginning of the New Year, in order to achieve a "red door".

Interviewed industry insiders said that China's economic recovery is accelerating and the market potential will be accelerated, bringing new opportunities for foreign companies to develop in China. Many foreign companies also said they will continue to cultivate the Chinese market in 2023 to seek long-term development.

Foreign companies are busy with their layout

The sound of machines dripping into the factory, more than 80 workers are working in an orderly manner on the production line, and the assembled vertical multistage centrifugal pump products are waiting to leave the factory. ...... is located in Beijing Sino-German Industrial Park, the production workshop of Wilo (China) Pump Systems Co. The company's government and public affairs director Rong Guang said that during the epidemic prevention and control, Beijing Shunyi District helped the enterprise coordinate for truck permits and provide door-to-door nucleic acid testing to ensure smooth production at the factory. 2022 enterprise sales increased by nearly 6% year-on-year, achieving counter-trend growth. Now it is the peak production season, the enterprise arrival rate and production rate have reached 100%, and all production and operation activities are back on track.

On the site, the construction of office towers, basements and floor equipment installation is in full swing at the site of Sino-Dutch (Suzhou) Science and Technology Innovation Port project located in Suzhou High-speed Railway New City. The project covers a total area of about 77 mu, with a total construction area of over 180,000 square meters, and aims to build a platform for exchange and cooperation between China and the Netherlands in the fields of optoelectronic technology, biomedicine, high-end automotive parts, etc. It is expected to be officially put into operation this year.

The new plant of global materials leader AGC Group (AGC) in Huizhou is also under hot construction, which is the fourth phase of AGC's local construction. "Due to the increased demand for panels for LCDs from our customer TCL Huaxing, AGC has made additional investments in this project in Huizhou. As planned, the new plant will be put into operation in the fourth quarter of this year." The person in charge of the project is introduced as such.

On the market side, new products are also accelerating the layout. on January 11, Intel held a new conference in Beijing for the fourth generation of Intel Xeon scalable processors, officially releasing a server chip with a new design. This is Intel's latest data center enterprise-class products targeting new opportunities for the development of the digital economy. This also means that Intel accelerates the pace of deepening the Chinese market and works with partners to create solutions that meet the key needs of the market.

"The fact that foreign companies are increasing their presence in the Chinese market reflects their keen market sense and their confidence and determination to plough deeply into the Chinese market." Hao Hongmei, deputy director of the Foreign Investment Institute of the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, told International Business Daily.

New opportunities in the new year

Hao Hongmei said that at present, China's economic growth is expected to continue to strengthen, and market opportunities are accelerating, providing new opportunities for enterprise development. Foreign enterprises have a very keen grasp of market trends and can quickly capture market opportunities. At the beginning of the new year, foreign enterprises accelerate their planning and layout, which can lay a better foundation for the whole year and even future business growth, and will also accelerate the growth of China's annual foreign investment absorption.

"Foreign companies have increased their presence in the Chinese market, thanks not only to the accelerated recovery of the Chinese economy, but also to China's unwavering policy of opening up to the outside world." Wang Jianhui, a veteran industrial economics researcher, said in an interview with International Business Daily that China has launched a series of policy initiatives in continuously expanding market access, improving foreign investment policies, upgrading open platforms and optimizing the business environment. The 20th Party Congress and the Central Economic Work Conference both put foreign-funded enterprises in an important position, giving a strong impetus to foreign-funded enterprises to step up their efforts to develop the Chinese market in the long term.

The report of the 20th Party Congress clearly released the signal of "promoting a high level of opening up" and proposed to "reasonably reduce the negative list of foreign investment access, protect the rights and interests of foreign investors according to the law, and create a market-oriented, rule of law and internationalized first-class business environment". The Central Economic Work Conference held afterwards also clearly deployed to "attract and utilize foreign investment more vigorously" in 2023, and proposed a series of specific measures such as "promoting the construction of landmark projects for foreign investment".

Localities are also increasing their efforts to introduce policy measures. In addition to the local "two sessions" held one after another in many places, in addition to the government's work report clearly to encourage foreign investment, many provinces and cities have also issued detailed policy measures specifically for foreign-funded enterprises. For example, Guangzhou City recently issued "Guangzhou City to promote the development of high-quality foreign investment measures", focusing on the whole process of foreign investment services to further optimize the business environment for foreign investment in Guangzhou City, to stabilize investment expectations, from six aspects of 20 measures to provide institutional safeguards for foreign enterprises to take root in Guangzhou.

Hao Hongmei said, looking ahead to the whole year, the favorable factors for stabilizing foreign investment are increasing, but from a global perspective, there are many risks, challenges and uncertainties. Therefore, all places should fully anticipate the unfavorable factors, pay close attention to the implementation of policy measures, and at the same time strengthen the contact with foreign enterprises, research and propose more accurate and effective policy initiatives, and make greater efforts to attract and utilize foreign investment, while further optimizing the structure of foreign investment, attracting more foreign investment to the central and western regions, to high-tech industries and service industries, and making greater efforts to attract foreign investment from the "Belt and Road" and RCEP member countries. "and RCEP member countries.

Wang Jianhui suggested that foreign enterprises, while giving full play to their advantages such as strong market development ability, also need to learn more about China's industrial policies and invest more in areas encouraged by policies and with big market prospects, so as to gain greater growth opportunities in helping to build a new development pattern; they need to dynamically learn about China's opening-up policies and initiatives to optimize the business environment, strengthen ties with the government, and make better use of the policy benefits; they need to integrate into Chinese culture and achieve localization in accordance with rules and practices. We need to achieve localization in the Chinese culture, achieve a better balance between rules and practices and the actual situation of the Chinese market, and achieve steady development while deeply cultivating the Chinese market.