Global firms mark up expectations of China

Zhang Yansheng, chief researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said: "The fact that the CIIE is organized every year demonstrates that China honors its commitment to high-level opening-up and is sharing its development dividends with others to shore up globalization.

"The world is in urgent need of more trade orders and increased demand to revive the staggering economic recovery, as well as communication to reach consensus and repair global industrial and supply chains."

Against the backdrop of a global economic slowdown, Pablo Machado, global executive vice-president at Suzano, said the company looks at the Chinese market from a "long-term perspective" and has great confidence about growth in the Chinese market.

"The year 2025 will again be a year of growth for Suzano here. We have seen a clear plan from the Chinese government in adjusting its development model, which focuses more on high quality rather than only high speed," said Machado, who is also president of business management at Suzano Asia.

According to him, the company's pulp business grew 6.6 percent year-on-year last year in the Chinese market thanks to the country's economic growth and is already its largest pulp export destination, which accounted for over 40 percent of its exports.

"In line with the Chinese government's initiatives to cultivate new quality productive forces, particularly to improve the promotion of strategic industries such as new-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, new energy, new materials and biomedicine, Suzano will enhance our scale and competitiveness to meet the growing market demand here," he said.

Compared with traditional productive tools that are driven by elements like labor, land and capital, new quality productive forces refer to technological innovation, data, smart or intelligent technologies and the like that are free from traditional economic growth models, promise high efficiency and top quality, and are in line with the nation's new development philosophy for a strategic future.

China has made developing new quality productive forces into a top agenda.

In order to remove obstacles and difficulties in the development of new quality productive forces, the country is also speeding up the process of deepening reform of its economic structure and building a high-level socialist market economy system, with a key focus on fields including a high-standard market system.

According to Machado, China has launched many initiatives in recent years, including the further opening-up policy and some economic stimulus policies, which are the right directions to overcome rising economic challenges. "With such continued efforts, confidence will be fully restored," he said.

"Our vision for the future is clear; we remain committed to further strengthening our partnerships with local stakeholders, especially within the sustainability and innovation ecosystem, to accelerate China's shift toward a low-carbon economy," he added.

Despite subdued global investment sentiment, multinational companies are confident about investing in China and firmly believe innovations can represent the most significant growth opportunities for them in the Chinese market, said Zhou Mi, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

"The stable development of the Chinese market is not only to achieve the country's own development goals, but can also create more value for the international community," Zhou said.