Binhai New Area: Land for multinational enterprises to thrive

On November 1, the “11th International Multinational Corporation Leaders Roundtable Meeting” kicked off at the Yujiapu International Finance Conference Center in Binhai New Area. With the theme of “An Open China and the World”, the guests will focus on the opportunities and challenges of economic globalization, the sustainability and reality of China's high-quality economic development, and financial openness and supervision via speech, dialogue and exchange of discussions on a series of important issues such as balance and security in a day and a half. At the opening ceremony held on the afternoon of November 1, “opening” became the key word for the guests' attention. In the open context, guests from multinational companies believe that relying on their own advantages; they will continue to meet new important development opportunities in China's high quality development.

China's investment attractiveness is not diminished.

Reports from international organizations show that in the first half of this year, due to a series of factors such as policies and economic cycles, global external capital investment flows fell by 41%, corresponding to China's first three quarters attraction of nearly 100 billion US dollars of foreign investment, an increase of 6.4. %. In the view of the guests, this illustrates the concerns of international capital on the global economic situation, as well as the confidence of international companies and multinational companies in improving the business environment and opening up to China.

"The pace of opening up in China has never stopped." The guests present at the meeting introduced that in June this year, China introduced a new version of the negative list of foreign investment access, in 22 areas such as financial infrastructure, transportation, automobiles, aircraft, and energy. New opening measures were introduced, and restrictions on foreign investment were reduced by a quarter. Foreign-invested enterprises were originally set up in China to be examined and approved on a case-by-case basis. Today, more than 97% of foreign-funded enterprises only need to be filed through the Internet for registration.

A series of positive signals to help multinational companies develop in China were released at the meeting. The guests from the government departments said that in the next step, the government will continue to promote the optimization of the business environment, promote the further expansion of self-opening, further clean up the restrictions beyond the negative list of foreign investment, and further promote the reform of the “distribution service”. It will further reduce administrative licenses, strengthen intellectual property protection with greater efforts, increase penalties for violations, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of foreign-invested enterprises and fair competition.

Multinational companies are optimistic about China's opportunities.

The Royal Dutch Shell Group, the French Veolia Group, the Thai Zhengda Group and many other well-known multinational companies attended the meeting. Although they are on different industrial stages, they are equally optimistic about the future development opportunities brought to them by an “open China”.

“Shell expects to bring advanced technology and innovation to China as in the past, seize the opportunity to provide more clean energy, and work with partners to promote energy transformation. We hope that Shell will establish a fruitful partnership with China, and let consumers and society and the community benefit together," said Zhang Xinsheng, global vice president of Royal Dutch Shell Group and chairman of Shell China.

Xie Bing, vice chairman of the Thai Zhengda Group, pointed out that the current regional cooperation in the world has been blocked, and trade protectionism has become a new barrier in economic development. At such a time, China has put forward the banner of holding high the new era of reform and opening up. We will continue to deepen reform and comprehensive opening up, and declare to the world that China's reform and opening up will not stop. I believe that everyone here has deeply felt such a strong signal that China's reform will not stop and that opening will not stop. I believe that the more open China is, less limited the business opportunities are.

Multinational enterprises and TBNA have mutually beneficial win-win cooperation.

As the venue of this meeting, Binhai New Area and Tianjin Economic-technological Development Area (TEDA) also witnessed the development of multinational companies in China and the promotion and change they brought to the region. From the early Motorola to FAW-Volkswagen, which was officially put into production this year, multinational companies have always been active in TEDA for their own development.

According to statistics, 117 of the world's top 500 enterprises invest in TEDA, with more than 390 investment projects, covering advanced industries such as automobiles, electronics, petrochemicals, equipment, medical health, and modern service industries. Among them, the income in the investment field of electronic information, automobile manufacturing, etc. exceeds 100 billion yuan. Up to now, the total investment of foreign investment in TEDA totaled US$123.48 billion. The investors came from 70 countries and regions, and achieved great results and created great value. It has become the epitome of China's reform and opening up and the epitome of mutual benefit and win-win between China and multinational corporations.

In recent years, TEDA has continuously improved its international business environment and has full coverage of open policies and functions that are linked to international rules. In the first three quarters of 2018, the actual utilization of foreign capital in TEDA was 934 million US dollars, an increase of 10% over the same period of last year. The output value of foreign-funded enterprises in strategic emerging industries accounted for 92.8%, and the quality was further improved. A number of major multinational companies such as FAW-Volkswagen North China Base, FAW Toyota New Line and Samsung SDI have recently completed and put into production, fully demonstrating its attractiveness to multinational companies.

"This year marks the 40th years of China's reform and opening up while this meeting first entered Tianjin and came to the forefront of China's reform and opening up. It also witnessed that our door to opening up will be bigger and bigger. Multinational companies will have a better business environment, more business opportunities, and better sharing of the dividends of China's development," the relevant person in charge of the Binhai New Area Government said.

 

（Source：english.tjbh.com）