Multinationals see opportunities in China's higher-level opening-up

GUANGZHOU -- With the COVID-19 outbreak slowing down the global economic momentum, multinational enterprises see promising opportunities in China as the country continues to deepen its opening-up.

Politicians, scholars and entrepreneurs from around the world on Saturday hailed China's push for widening its opening-up and called for deeper international cooperation during a forum at the fifth Understanding China Conference held in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province.

Despite a grim and complex economic situation both domestically and globally this year due to the novel coronavirus epidemic, China has not decelerated its efforts in promoting reform and development through opening-up. Rather, the country has made an advancement to cover a broader scope, more fields and embrace deeper level reforms.

China has continuously cut the number of sectors and businesses that are off-limits for investment in its negative list for market access in recent years, providing huge opportunities for foreign companies and stimulating the vitality of market entities.

China's new "dual circulation strategy" will not only help to protect the Chinese economy from the volatility of external markets but will also help drive future economic development in a more balanced and sustainable way. These manifest a sign of reassurance for foreign investors of China's strong recovery potential and future sustainable growth, according to Merlin Swire, chairman of Swire Pacific Limited.

"As committed investors, we welcome China's ongoing policy of higher-level opening-up. The new Foreign Investment Law, which came into effect early this year, offers greater protection for investors and ensures a more level playing field and optimized business environment for foreign firms like Swire," Merlin Swire said.

In addition to the Swire Group, many other foreign enterprises have increased their capital and production in China.

In the first three quarters of this year, China's paid-in foreign investment saw a year-on-year increase of 2.5 percent to 103.26 billion U. S. dollars, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

As China is committed to opening its door wider to the rest of the world, multinational businesses are committed to deepening their development footprints in the country as well.

From initial drug sales to the formation of a complete industrial chain, including R&D, production and marketing, Roche Pharma China's business has made great progress along with China's economic development and medical reform in the past 26 years.

"China not only has a huge market potential but also a large number of medical and research institutions, as well as top scientists, making it a source of innovation and talents," said Hong Chow, CEO of Roche Pharma China.

Chow noted that in the future, stronger intellectual property protection and a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment would accelerate the conversion of innovative achievements into products in China, benefiting the people and enabling sustainable development of enterprises.

In the process of China's opening-up to a higher level, multinational enterprises will play a crucial role and gain greater opportunities, according to Yun Mingqing, Vice President of the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy.

"We should further enhance the sense of cooperation and development, strengthen mutual understanding and trust, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and carry out economic and technological cooperation at various levels, in wider areas and all directions," Yun said.