Stable market enticing global firms

China is sending a clear and consistent message that its super-sized market remains open and ready to serve as a stabilizing ballast for global businesses in a world grappling with economic turbulence and fragmented supply chains, experts and executives said.

The Ministry of Commerce's launch of the Big Market for All: Export to China initiative in November is another reminder of this commitment, as the sheer scale, wider openness and policy certainty of the Chinese market can offer a rare source of reliable growth, they added.

The initiative is aimed at boosting imports and providing a new channel for global products to enter the Chinese market, complementing existing platforms like the annual China International Import Expo, according to the ministry.

Events will feature targeted procurement and business matchmaking activities to facilitate the flow of high-quality products and services into China.

"This is a concrete step by China to actively expand its self-initiated opening-up and promote balanced growth in imports and exports," said Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

"It is an innovative move to share the opportunities of China's vast market with the world and open a new chapter of win-win cooperation," Wang said. "It also demonstrates China's proactive role in supporting economic globalization and upholding the multilateral trading system."

Official data shows that China has remained the world's second-largest import market for 16 consecutive years, with combined imports of goods and services projected to exceed $15 trillion during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25).

In the first three quarters of this year, China's agricultural product imports reached $57.1 billion, up 2.6 percent year-on-year. Purchases of electromechanical and high-tech products rose by 5 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.

US-China Business Council President Sean Stein said that the continued deep engagement of companies from the United States in the Chinese market reflects the US business community's confidence in the opportunities arising from China's high-quality development.

Stein said that heightened global uncertainty has led some US firms "to increase their reliance on China as a production base for the China market and for other global markets, because they know what they get — a stable investment climate".

In today's fragmented global economy, one resource has become increasingly scarce and valuable — an open, stable and large-scale market, analysts and executives said.

According to the World Openness Report 2025 compiled by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the World Openness Index registered a marginal decline of 0.05 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year, reflecting drops of 0.34 percent from 2019 and 5.39 percent from 2008, indicating that global openness remains in a contraction phase.

Europe, Central Asia and North America emerged as the regions experiencing a contraction in openness, the report noted.

"As geopolitical shifts fracture and reconfigure global supply chains, a market that combines scale with resilience, one capable of absorbing traditional goods while incubating new business models, has become a rare and strategic asset," said Chen Wenling, former chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

Yet scale alone does not guarantee appeal. The central challenge, and opportunity, lies in transforming a merely "large" market into a "high-quality" one, Chen said.

She noted that this pivot requires more than size; it demands that the market's perceived stability translates into tangible business confidence — the kind that generates actual purchase orders, fosters long-term partnerships, and withstands external shocks. China aims to position itself as precisely such a market.

As the world's largest developing economy, China's openness index registered a rise of 29.6 percent from 1990 to 2024, placing it among the top global performers. Last year, the index for China grew 0.5 percent year-on-year, ranking the country as 38th among 129 economies, according to the report.

Luca de Meo, CEO of luxury group Kering, said that the global business community is actively seeking greater stability, predictability and cooperation.

In this context, China's dedicated efforts to boost imports send a clear signal to the world that the country is not only a vast consumer market but also a cooperative partner committed to achieving shared success through institutional innovation, he said.

Behind the import-oriented initiative lies trade facilitation: regulatory alignment, standards mutual recognition, accelerated certification, and streamlined cross-border payments, which form a critical mechanism for slashing the institutional transaction costs that so often hamper global commerce, analysts said.

This is particularly transformative for developing economies and smaller enterprises. For them, time is cost, and speed is competitiveness, said Zhou Mi, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Consider a typical small firm from Southeast Asia: breaking into developed markets can be a three-to-five-year odyssey of navigating labyrinthine certifications and building distribution from scratch. Through the integrated channels, that grueling timeline can be compressed to under a year, Zhou said.

What China offers global businesses is no longer just demand, it is a real-world testing environment of unprecedented scale.

"Business executives have recognized that a product that succeeds with Chinese consumers — who are both discerning in quality and receptive to innovation — is likely to succeed anywhere," said Zhu Keli, founding director of the China Institute of New Economy.

The intensity of competition and the speed of adoption within China are encouraging global suppliers to innovate faster. In this sense, the Chinese market functions both as a laboratory for developing new technologies and a competitive arena where only the most resilient products succeed, Zhu said.

The eighth China International Import Expo, held in early November in Shanghai, featured 461 new products, technologies and services. These included those in cutting-edge fields like the low-altitude economy and humanoid robotics, as well as the latest global advances in new-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, and green and low-carbon initiatives.

China is increasingly recognized not only as a manufacturing and consumer giant, but also as a hub of innovation and engineering talent, said Tetsuro Homma, executive vice-president of Japanese electronics manufacturer Panasonic.

"Many of the innovative products developed through our R&D efforts in China are already supplying global markets," he said. "I am confident this trend will accelerate, with Panasonic Group further expanding its research and development capabilities in China."

To truly make the Chinese market shared by all, experts said that the key lies in whether China can leverage higher-level opening-up to build competitive advantages, support demand upgrading with higher-quality supply, and enhance market transparency through higher-standard governance.

This means continuously improving the business environment, strengthening the protection of property rights, and refining rules in emerging areas such as cross-border data flow, digital trade and green product certification, said Cui Fan, a professor of international trade at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Meanwhile, it demands higher-level institutional opening-up by expanding market access and the scope of national treatment, promoting the broader alignment with high-standard international trade rules, and safeguarding the stability of industrial and supply chains through multilateral and bilateral channels.

wangkeju@chinadaily.com.cn