Corporations aim for more China presence

Multinational corporations have vowed to deepen cooperation with their Chinese partners and seize the huge opportunities presented by China's sharpened focus on bolstering technological innovation and industrial upgrade, reaffirming their long-term confidence in the world's second-largest economy.

Highlighting China's pivotal position in global industrial and supply chains, top company executives noted that the country's unwavering commitment to advancing high-standard opening-up will contribute to a more favorable business environment, shore up the confidence of foreign investors and drive global economic growth despite mounting external challenges.

Their comments follow the tone-setting Central Economic Work Conference held earlier this month, which underlined efforts to expand high-standard opening-up and keep foreign trade and investment stable. The two-day meeting, which concluded on Dec 12, also listed driving the development of new quality productive forces through science and technology innovation as one of the priorities for economic work next year.

Tetsuro Homma, executive vice-president of Japanese tech company Panasonic Holdings Corp, said the measures taken by Chinese authorities to promote high-standard opening-up and achieve high-quality economic development will help foreign companies step up investment and strengthen their presence in the Chinese market.

"China is not only a manufacturing giant and a major consumer country, but also an innovator with exceptional engineering talent. It boasts a strong ability to absorb new technologies," said Homma, emphasizing that Panasonic is drawing a wealth of young and high-caliber Chinese talent to its research and development team for bolstering its digital transformation.

The company's businesses in China mainly involve healthy and intelligent living spaces, new energy vehicle components and intelligent manufacturing.

"We have been expanding our investment in China since the COVID-19 pandemic, and have established 18 new facilities," he said, adding that the design, R&D, manufacturing, sales and customer services of Panasonic have been localized.

Ian Shih, president of Rockwell Automation China, said the United States-based industrial automation company is looking forward to helping Chinese enterprises accelerate digital and intelligent transformation by leveraging innovative technologies, including 5G, artificial intelligence and the industrial internet of things.

Shih said he appreciates China's various measures to boost opening-up, including the deepening of reforms in foreign investment, adding that "the supportive business environment has bolstered our confidence in our development within China, enabling us to better understand and address the unique needs of our local partners".

"We believe that cultivating new quality productive forces necessitates upgrading the quality and models of businesses in China," he said.

Emon Zaman, senior vice-president and head of Asia-Pacific at United Kingdom-based industrial software developer Aveva, said, "In the manufacturing sector, Chinese companies are all already very competitive, but I feel that the next level of efficiency will be gained by using technology to drive even more efficiency, so that they are even more globally competitive."

Zhou Mi, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said that China has not only lowered the threshold for foreign investment, but also introduced favorable policies for key industries as well as R&D and innovation, in order to guide and support foreign capital to flow into the high-tech manufacturing sector.

The increase in foreign investment in China's high-tech industry will yield positive returns for both sides, Zhou said, adding that Chinese enterprises could learn advanced technologies and management experience from their foreign counterparts and improve innovation capacity and competitiveness, thereby injecting impetus into economic transformation and upgrading.

The structure of foreign investment in China continues to be optimized. Data from the Ministry of Commerce showed that in the first 11 months of the year, the proportion of foreign direct investment in actual use in China's high-tech manufacturing rose 0.3 percentage point compared with the same period last year.

Denis Depoux, global managing director at management consultancy Roland Berger, said: "Foreign enterprises have been, and will hopefully remain, a key contributor to the Chinese industrial modernization drive. And now, China is committed to further opening up the services sector. Along with this transformation, there are plenty of opportunities for international collaboration, investment and joint development."

China has emerged as a strong player in the global R&D landscape, Depoux said, adding that to become a true innovation-driven country, China needs to become an enabler of R&D, driven by universities and domestic and foreign companies.

Zhu Keli, founding director of the China Institute of New Economy, said the country's intensified efforts to further reform the institutions and mechanisms for promoting foreign investment have demonstrated its firm determination to foster a world-class, market-oriented business environment governed by a sound legal framework.

Anu Rathninde, president of US-based smart building solutions provider Johnson Controls Asia-Pacific, said the rise of new quality productive forces "signifies a transformative shift in China's economic model, replacing outdated growth drivers with more dynamic ones, and establishing the foundation for more robust economic development".