Yicai:
This January, China's foreign investment increased by 11.6% year on year, demonstrating that China's attractiveness to foreign investment has not diminished under external uncertainties such as repeated coronavirus flare-ups overseas. What are your predictions for China's foreign investment this year? And going forward, what measures will be taken to stabilize the scale and optimize the structure of foreign investment? Thank you.
Wang Wentao:
Regarding the issue of foreign investment, I would like to answer your questions. Over the past two years, due to the impact of the pandemic and adjustments to the global industrial chain and supply chain structure, global cross-border investment has fluctuated greatly. However, China's utilization of foreign investment has maintained steady growth. China has constantly been an attractive destination for foreign investment. In 2021, China's foreign investment hit a new record high, breaking the 1 trillion yuan mark for the first time and reaching 1.15 trillion yuan. This is the first time in the past decade that we achieved double-digit growth, with a growth rate of 14.9%. In terms of U.S. dollars, this figure is $173.5 billion, with a growth rate of 20.2%, and a two-year average of 12.1%. The proportion of foreign investment in high-tech industries exceeded 30% for the first time. The situation of this January was stable and the momentum was relatively good. The actual use of foreign investment in the country maintained double-digit growth, with a growth rate of 11.6%. The Central Economic Work Conference emphasized increasing efforts to attract foreign investment, and we will thoroughly implement this, mainly by further expanding high-level opening-up and further optimizing the business environment. The main direction of the efforts will be in two aspects: one is maintaining stability and the other is promoting excellence. Next, I would like to talk about these two aspects.
The first is maintaining stability, that is, stabilizing the stock of foreign investment and increasing the amount. We will further ease market access for foreign capital. In recent years, we have continued to relax market access, and have reduced negative lists for foreign investment access across the country and in pilot free trade zones for five consecutive years. Last year, we released the negative list of cross-border trade in services for the Hainan Free Trade Port. In addition, we must give full play to the role of some platforms for opening-up in attracting investment. These platforms include 21 pilot free trade zones, the Hainan Free Trade Port, 230 national economic development zones, and the "1+4" localities for showcasing and piloting wider opening-up in service sector. There are also some platforms, such as major expos including the China International Fair for Investment and Trade (CIFIT) and the China International Small and Medium Enterprises Fair (CISMEF), to promote business matchmaking, and attract the signing of more project contracts. We will further strengthen service guarantees. We have a special task force for key foreign-funded projects under the foreign trade and foreign investment coordination mechanism, which is a special team serving enterprises. With this special team, services are more efficient and precise. Last year, we coordinated and resolved more than 1,000 issues reported by foreign-funded enterprises and projects, especially issues we identified as being shared by numerous foreign-funded enterprises, which was welcomed by foreign-funded enterprises. For example, we promoted the introduction of policies to ensure that foreign-funded enterprises can participate in government procurement on an equal footing. Last year, foreign-funded enterprises reported that the relevant ministries and commissions had solved this issue. The special task force will continue to boost services to help enterprises stabilize investment, production and operation, and promote the early signing of projects, early start of production and early reaching of production goals. We will continue to support the promotion of investment everywhere. General Secretary Xi Jinping made a request to the China International Import Expo (CIIE), emphasizing turning exhibits into commodities, and exhibitors into investors. With so many exhibitors coming, how can exhibitors be turned into investors? This presents us with a task. Last year, we used the platform of the CIIE to launch a series of roadshow activities in various regions, the first stop being Sichuan province. I attended the CIIE's Sichuan roadshow event, and saw that 78 exhibitors and 164 enterprise executives participated, which led to a batch of projects settling in Sichuan. This year, we will continue to carry out similar activities to promote the CIIE in local areas, especially in central and western provinces. This is the first aspect I want to talk about.
Second, "advancement" means improvement in structure and quality. Recent years have seen continuous efforts in upgrading the use of foreign investment, for example, high-tech manufacturing industries and high-tech services industries logged an increase of 17.1% and 23.7%, respectively, in absorbing foreign capital last year, and the growth rates in China's central and western regions were above the national average level. However, we also noticed that both the scale and proportion of foreign investment in the manufacturing industry have decreased. In 2021, the scale dropped by 4.6% as against the figure of 2019; the proportion was reduced to 19.4%, which requires us to pay more attention. China is forging ahead from a large manufacturing country toward a manufacturing power and must focus on bringing more foreign funds to this industry. Therefore, we will further intensify support for absorbing more foreign investment, amend the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries for Foreign Investment to include more sectors, and guide more overseas investment into the advanced manufacturing industry, emerging industries of strategic importance, the digital economy, green development, and other areas. Meanwhile, as I just mentioned, China's central and western regions grew at a faster pace in absorbing foreign investment than the national average and have huge potential. China has a vast territory, and its western part has abundant natural resources and adequate labor force. In recent years, China's central and western regions have strengthened their industrial supporting capacity, in particular, the transport infrastructure, which connects China and overseas countries. For example, the launch of China-Europe freight trains and the construction of new land-sea corridor are all driving the growth of imports and exports. After the upgrading of certain airports in the western region, the capacity of land and air transport has been significantly improved. As a result, while pursuing a deeper development in those regions, we will call on more attention from foreign enterprises since the regions have huge potential untapped: a large population, residents' increasing consumption capacity and purchasing power with the growth of the local economy. We will well implement regional plans targeted on both major strategy and coordination development, help these regions bring into full play their advantages, foster new industries, facilitate a smooth transfer of coastal industries to the inland, and create a new growth pole in attracting foreign investment. Thank you!
