CMG Voice of China: 

Since last year, data on China's foreign investment attraction have shown certain fluctuations. How does the Ministry of Commerce view the current situation of investment attraction? What further steps will be taken? Thank you.

Ji Xiaofeng: 

Thank you for your questions. From the perspective of overall global, transnational investment and the economic situation in various countries, fluctuations in FDI are a normal phenomenon. To comprehensively assess the situation of foreign investment attraction in China, we need to consider not just changes in scale but, more importantly, the optimization of the structure and its prospects.

First, let's consider changes in the scale of investment attraction. In the first quarter of this year, China attracted over 300 billion yuan in foreign investment. During the same period last year, China reached its highest quarterly volume of foreign investment attraction. There has been a slight decrease this year due to the impact of a high base. Additionally, in the first quarter of this year, China saw the establishment of 12,000 new foreign-funded businesses, an increase of 20.7% year on year, maintaining the trend of rapid growth in new enterprises since last year. Foreign investment typically involves a process from project signing and company registration to construction completion and operation commencement. As foreign capital arrives progressively with the pace of project construction, fluctuations in data during this process are commonly observed. The increase in the number of new enterprises is an indicator and will support future investment inflows.

Second, let's consider the optimization of the investment structure. In the first quarter of this year, the utilized foreign investment in China's manufacturing industry reached 81.06 billion yuan, with 37.76 billion yuan being attracted to the high-tech manufacturing sector. Both figures accounted for a higher proportion of total investment attraction than in the same period last year, increasing by 2.3 and 2.2 percentage points, respectively. Investment attraction growth in some advanced manufacturing sectors has also been relatively fast. For example, attracted investment in the medical equipment manufacturing industry remarkably increased by 169.7% year on year, fully demonstrating the continuous optimization of China's investment attraction structure.

The basic trend of China's economic recovery and long-term improvement generally remains unchanged. With the continuous advancement of China's new quality productive forces and the gradual effects of a series of policies aimed at stabilizing the economy, promoting openness, and attracting foreign investment, the conditions and environment for foreign investment in China are expected to continue improving. Recently, the American management consulting firm Kearney's Global Business Policy Council released its 2024 Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index (FDICI). In this index, China rose from seventh to third place last year, reflecting multinational corporations' continued willingness to expand their investments in China.

Next, MOFCOM will thoroughly implement the arrangements of the Central Economic Work Conference and the government work report, mainly advancing our work in five areas. First, we will relax foreign investment access. We will downsize the negative list for foreign investment access in a reasonable way, comprehensively abolishing access restrictions in the manufacturing sector and easing market access in the medical, telecommunications and other service sectors. We will also revise the catalogue of industries for encouraging foreign investment, add and supplement encouraging items, and provide broader space for foreign investment in China by "reducing restrictions and increasing incentives." Second, we will enhance investment promotion. We will ensure the success of major events with the theme of "Invest in China," strengthen our promotional efforts at abroad to attract foreign investment, boost targeted investment in areas such as advanced manufacturing, strategic emerging industries, digital and intelligent technologies, and green technologies, and continuously optimize the industrial structure of foreign investment. Third, we will strengthen services and support. We will leverage the role of special task forces for crucial foreign-funded projects, make good use of roundtable discussions for foreign-funded enterprises as well as the system for collecting and handling their issues and demands, communicate with these enterprises in a candid and practical manner, and promptly address their difficulties and problems. Fourth, we will build open platforms. We will align with international high-standard economic and trade rules, implement the plan to deepen the construction of the Integrated National Demonstration Zone for Opening up the Services Sector, and introduce a new round of open and innovative policy measures in other pilot provinces and municipalities in due course. As a series of activities will be held this year to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the first batch of national economic and technological development zones, we will promote the innovation and upgrading of these zones and strengthen their role as platforms for attracting investment. Fifth, we will optimize the investment environment. Recently, the "24 Measures for Foreign Investment" have been continuously implemented, including policies to promote cross-border data flow and to optimize payment services, which have been widely praised by foreign-funded enterprises. Next, we will continue to promote the implementation of these measures, conduct another evaluation on it in due course, and truly transform policy measures into tangible benefits for foreign-funded enterprises. Thank you.