2019 in review: China remains "gold mine" for foreign investors

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BEIJING, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- As 2019 draws to an end, China is set todeliver solid economic results with expanding foreign investment inflowbeing one of the bright spots, revealing that it remains a major magnetfor investors worldwide.

Since the beginning of the year, China has maintained a stable andupward trend in attracting foreign capital with more majorforeign-invested projects worth billions or even tens of billions U.S.dollars, said Meng Wei, spokesperson for the top economic planner.

BIGGER PIE

On Wednesday, a total of 128 deals with an investment of over 560billion yuan were signed at the Shenzhen Global Investment PromotionConference, pointing to an upbeat outlook on the development of thesouthern tech hub and China at large.

Amid weak global demand, foreign direct investment (FDI) into theChinese mainland expanded 6 percent year on year to 845.9 billion yuan(about 124.4 billion dollars) in the first 11 months, showed data fromthe Ministry of Commerce (MOC).

Of the total, 28.5 percent, or 240.7 billion yuan went to high-tech industries, surging 27.6 percent year on year.

During the period, a total of 36,747 new foreign-funded enterprises were established, showed the data.

Citing German chemicals giant BASF's smart Verbund project inGuangdong and Tesla's Shanghai factory, Meng said the progress of theselarge projects demonstrated these firms' confidence in investing inChina.

NEW LANDSCAPE

Amid the overall FDI growth, overseas retailers and financialinvestors are also navigating their strategies to tap into the marketpotential of the second-largest economy.

Since the beginning of this year, a slew of international companiesincluding Adidas, Nike and Lego have opened new flagship stores in majorChinese cities, while German supermarket chain ALDI entered the Chinesemainland market and Lawson convenience stores swept across third- andfourth-tier cities.

Meanwhile, Walmart China plans to accelerate its expansion by openingmore than 500 new stores and depots in the next five to seven years andupdating 200 existing stores in three years.

Similar momentum was also observed in the financial market.

By the end of October, foreign-funded banks had established 41legal-person banks, 114 branches and 976 operating institutions on theChinese mainland, with their aggregate assets at 3.37 trillion yuan.

In the wake of China's scrapping of investment quota limits forQualified Foreign Institutional Investors and Renminbi Qualified ForeignInstitutional Investors, overseas institutions have shown growinginvestment enthusiasm for China's financial market.

The bonds and stocks owned by overseas investors were valued at 2.18trillion yuan and 1.77 trillion yuan, respectively, both notchinghistorical highs by the end of the third quarter.

EASED ACCESS

While newcomers are rushing in, China has been honoring its commitment to opening up more sectors for foreign investment.

To ensure the implementation of the landmark foreign investment law,China approved a draft regulation at a State Council executive meetinglast week, promising equal treatment of domestic and foreign businessesregarding government funding, land supply and tax and fee cuts.

The move came after the unveiling of the 2019 negative list formarket access a month ago, which further cut the number of sectors andbusinesses that are off-limits to foreign investors.

While charting the course for economic work in 2020 at the CentralEconomic Work Conference earlier this month, China vowed to furtherfacilitate and protect foreign investment as opening-up will continue todevelop on a larger scale and at a deeper level.

With the implementation of these measures, there will be moreforeign-funded projects in China as foreign investment will see anoptimized environment, Meng said.

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