Status as major destination for foreign direct investment clear

Foreign capital actually used in China in the first quarter of this year was 408.45 billion yuan ($59.17 billion), up 4.9 percent year-on-year, and the number of newly established foreign-invested enterprises exceeded 10,000, a year-on-year increase of 25.5 percent.

China has also seen a flurry of visits by foreign executives this year. At the ongoing Auto Shanghai 2023, Germany's Volkswagen Group announced an investment of around 1 billion euros ($1.09 billion) to build an electric vehicle research and development center in Hefei, Anhui province. Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume said the company had found a way to get closer to Chinese consumers after a fact-finding trip to China earlier this year.

As the global economy continues to be in a recession, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development predicts that global transnational investment could continue to decline in 2023. Against this background, China's foreign investment in the first quarter is a hard-won performance.

Specifically, in the first quarter, China's actual use of foreign capital in high-tech industries reached 156.71 billion yuan, up 18 percent year-on-year, reflecting its new advantage in attracting high-quality foreign investment. Foreign investment from France and the United Kingdom was particularly good in the first quarter, with both increasing by more than six times.

As China has optimized its pandemic prevention policies since the beginning of this year, cross-border travel has become more convenient, stimulating investment demand from foreign companies. Against the background of frequent visits to China by European political leaders, "strengthening business with China" has become the consensus of European enterprises.

As the world's second-largest consumer market for goods and the largest online retail market, the Chinese market is undoubtedly a "big cake" for foreign investors. According to a white paper on China's business environment in 2023 released by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China, more than 90 percent of the respondents regard China as one of the most important investment destinations, and 75 percent plan to re-invest in China this year. In recent years, foreign investment in China has continued to grow. As China makes greater efforts to implement the innovation-driven development strategy, R&D is becoming an important area for foreign investment.

Increasingly, foreign investors are taking concrete actions to prove that they are optimistic about the future of the Chinese market.