Recently the First Sino-EU Enterprise Investment & Cooperation Summit was held in Guangzhou Development District (GDD). More than 170 multinationals from Europe and famous enterprises from China attended the meeting.

 

Enterprise representatives said the meeting was practical and rewarding with “one-to-one” meetings, considerate services and introduction of the investment dividends of the governmental departments, and industrial workshops and so on.

 

At the end of 2013, the National Development and Reform Commission of China and the European Commission signed the joint statement of EU-China High Level Dialogue and Seminar on Regional Policy in Beijing and explicitly made GDD the first pilot of Sino-EU regional policy cooperation. GDD has signed the pairing agreements with Mercia of the UK, Jena of Germany, and Upper Austria and established the UK-China (Guangzhou) Health Tech Open Innovation Workshop, successfully nailed down more than 100 projects and launched 25 Sino-EU cooperation demonstration projects in the first batch. It will mainly promote construction of “Sino-EU Innovation Center”, including Sino-EU (Guangzhou) Opening-up, Innovation and Technological Transfer and Incubation Center, Sino-EU (Guangzhou) Cooperation Project Roadshow Center etc. in the next step.

 

“The ‘One Belt and One Road’ plan has also strengthened the economic and trade ties between China and EU. Guangzhou, and GDD in particular, should grasp opportunities and occupy the commanding height of the economic development of China and EU,” said Zhou Qingfeng, chief economist of Guangzhou Municipal Development and Reform Commission.

 

GDD and Huangpu District are one of the first choices for foreign investors to enter the Chinese market. Today the district has attracted more than 3100 foreign-funded projects from more than 60 countries and regions, and actually used foreign investment of US$18 billion, including 116 projects from European countries, with total investment of US$2.13 billion, actually used foreign investment of US$870 million, and total industrial output value of nearly RMB30 billion.

 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou, Jan. 22, 2016