Foreign Investors hail for accelerating development in industrial hub

The Deputy Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and Governor of Guangdong province, Wang Weizhong has acknowledged that foreign investment plays a key role in the development of Guangdong province.
Wang Weizhong, Deputy Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and Governor of Guangdong

By Benjamin Takpiny

The Deputy Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and Governor of Guangdong province, Wang Weizhong has acknowledged that foreign investment plays a key role in the development of Guangdong province.

“Foreign trade and foreign investment play an important role in the development of Guangdong,” Wang said at a press conference last week.

He said that since the reform and opening up, Guangdong has taken the lead in developing the “three to one supplement” processing trade, actively introduced foreign investment, advanced technology and management experience, and quickly integrated into the international division of labor system.

Wang said that Guangdong province’s foreign trade dependence is 64%, Dongguan’s foreign trade dependence is 124% and Shenzhen is 113%.

He said that in just over 40 years, Guangdong has developed from a relatively backward agricultural province to one of the provinces with the most active economy and the highest degree of openness.

Wang said that Guangdong’s foreign trade import and export reached 8.3 trillion yuan last year, and the cumulative actual utilization of foreign investment exceeded 578 billion U.S dollars, accounting for 1/5 of the country’s total.

He added that the utilization of foreign investment has stabilized at more than 20 billion dollars for nine consecutive years. More than 350 of the world’s top 500 companies are in Guangdong.

“In recent years, facing the complex and severe external environment, we have resolutely implemented the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee, made great efforts to ensure foreign investment and foreign trade, and introduced a series of policies to stabilize foreign trade and foreign investment, and promote the scale of foreign trade import and export and the actual use of foreign investment,” Wang said.

“Especially last year, we withstood pressure from all sides and achieved an import and export volume of 8.3 trillion yuan, an increase of 0.3% against the trend. Among them, cross-border e-commerce import and export reached 843.3 billion yuan last year, an increase of 25.2%, accounting for approximately 40% of the country’s total. Relying on Guangdong’s complete industrial facilities, superior business environment, and huge market potential, we have attracted investments of more than 10 billion dollars from BASF, ExxonMobil, CNOOC and Shell in recent years,” he disclosed.

He said that the third phase of CNOOC /Shell started construction last year Construction, ExxonMobil’s first phase will be put into operation by the end of this year, and the BASF integrated project will be completed next year.

“Many foreign-funded enterprises have set up research h and development centers in Guangdong. We have held the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Global Investment Conference for two consecutive years. We have also gone overseas to attract investment. Last year, we held the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area European Economic and Trade Cooperation and Exchange Conference in Germany, which achieved very good results,” Wang said.

Wang said that in the past two years of investment conferences, they have signed a total of 1,700 projects with a total amount of 4.7 trillion yuan.

From January to February this year, he said that 2,982 new foreign-funded enterprises were established in Guangdong, an increase of 38.1%, which fully demonstrates that Guangdong is the first choice and preferred place for foreign-funded enterprises to invest.

“We will unswervingly expand high-level opening up to the outside world, build a “five-foreign linkage” combination of foreign trade, foreign investment, outsourcing, foreign economics, and foreign intelligence, and fully support the development of foreign trade and foreign investment,” Wang said.

He added that first they will promote the improvement of quality and efficiency of foreign trade, adding that they will introduce policies to stabilize foreign trade and promote growth, expand trade in intermediate goods, cultivate more new export growth points such as the “Three New Products”, stabilize and enhance processing trade, promote the development of new foreign trade formats, and consolidate and expand diversified international markets.

“Africa is an important trading partner of Guangdong. Last year, Guangdong’s total import and export to Africa exceeded 270 billion yuan, an increase of 3.9%, accounting for 13.7% of China-Africa trade. Mobile phones from Shenzhen, furniture from Foshan, and lamps from Zhongshan are all popular among African friends. In particular, our African friends may know more about Transsion mobile phones,” Wang said.

He said that Transsion mobile phones are specifically designed for use by Africa and are widely loved by Africans.

“The second is to accelerate the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade. Promote domestic and foreign trade products of the same line, same standard and same quality, help enterprises smoothly switch between domestic and international markets, and let more Guangdong’s innovative technologies, high-quality products, and brand services sell well and serve the country,” Wang said.

He said that the third thing is to create a market-oriented, legal and international first-class business environment, promote institutional opening up, fully implement the negative list for foreign investment access, and implement service mechanisms for major foreign investment projects such as “through train” and “one-stop” to achieve more efficient and high-quality services.

Wang said that next month they will hold the 135th Canton Fair, which is “China’s No. 1 Exhibition”.

“We sincerely welcome friends from home and abroad to participate in the exhibition in Guangzhou to achieve win-win cooperation,” he said.

He said that as a major economic province, Guangdong must truly take the lead, be at the forefront of economic development, and strive to make more contributions to the overall situation of the country.

“This year Guangdong’s goal is 5%. We are confident and confident about this goal. Confidence comes from the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee,” Wang said.

He said that the Party Central Committee has clearly stated that it’s priority is to seek progress while maintaining stability, promoting stability through advancement, and establishing before breaking.

“We focus on the central task of economic construction and the primary task of high-quality development, and pay close attention to projects. Investment, the province’s industrial investment increased by 22.2% last year, maintaining double-digit growth for 36 consecutive months, and investment in technological transformation increased by 22.4%, a growth rate that hit a six-year high,” Wang said.

He said that this year, they have arranged 1 trillion yuan for key construction projects and more than 320 billion yuan for industrial projects.

“We are accelerating the advancement of 55 major manufacturing projects of more than 5 billion yuan, and we have also reserved a large number of high-quality projects. On the basis of last year’s push for more than 9,300 enterprises to carry out technological transformation and the digital transformation of more than 5,000 regulated industrial enterprises,” Wang said.

He promised that this year they will promote the technological transformation of more than 10,000 industrial enterprises and the digital transformation of 9,200 regulated industrial enterprises. Confidence comes from an active market and strong popularity.

 Last year, the number of business entities in Guangdong Province increased by 1.728 million, reaching 18 million, including a net increase of 1.11 million individual industrial and commercial households, with the total number exceeding 10 million, and 7.8 million enterprises, accounting for 1/7 of the country.

“I would also like to introduce to the media that from January to February this year, 330,000 new business entities were established, including 182,000 individual industrial and commercial households and 148,000 enterprises. Guangdong has a population of more than 150 million. Last year, the province received 777 million tourists, and its total tourism revenue exceeded 950 billion yuan, ranking first in the country,” Wang said.

He said that during the Spring Festival this year, Guangdong received 76.07 million tourists, an increase of 68%, and achieved tourism revenue 69.4 billion yuan, an increase of 160%.

“Guangdong is now very popular. From January to February this year, Guangdong’s economic performance continued to rebound and improve, with industry growth of 10.6%, consumption growth of 6.1%, investment growth of 4.3%, and import and export growth of 24.9%,” Wang said.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *