The government work report made at the 5^th Session of the 12^th People’s Congress of Guangdong Province said that, Guangdong should be highly motivated to build a “high-intensity magnetic field” to absorb foreign investment in 2017 and strive to become the first choice of foreign investors.

 

It was learnt that, it is not a sustainable way to attract investment by building “low-lying land of preferential policies” because of the rising of factor costs as well as restrictions of resources and environment. Therefore, the only long-term strategy should be seeking for a good internal development to attract foreign investment by systems, environment and services. In 2017, Guangdong province will build a more competitive investment environment.

 

For this purpose, Guangdong province will adopt seven “new tactics” for the next-step work for attracting foreign investment.

 

1.       Improve foreign investment contract fulfillment rate and supervise 100 projects in Guangzhou and Shenzhen

 

Great efforts should be made to improve the rate of transformation from contracted projects to contracted foreign investment and the rate of transformation from contracted foreign investment to actual foreign investment to accelerate the inflow of foreign investment. A foreign investment contract fulfillment supervision mechanism should be established, and 100 key contracted foreign investment projects should be selected to establish standing account books for seasonal supervision over such projects one by one. The cities of the province should establish their own foreign investment contract fulfillment promotion mechanisms and put a number of selected projects under emphasized supervision. Each city in the Pearl River Delta should select more than 25 projects. Of these cities, Guangzhou and Shenzhen should respectively select more than 50 projects. Each city in eastern, western and northern Guangdong should select more than 10 projects. 

 

2.       Carry out special investment promotion activities for industry chain development and offset weaknesses in industry chains

 

Investment promotion activities targeting at discover and offset weaknesses in industry chains should be carried out based on analysis on industry chains, with emphasis laid on 10 industries, including high-end numerically-controlled machine tools, industrial robots, household appliances, information and communication equipment, new energy vehicles, integrated circuit, textile and garment, chemical, environmental protection equipment and bio-medicine. These activities should be carried out by the Provincial-Municipal Joint Groups led by responsible officials from the provincial government according to classification of industries.

 

3.       Make new policies on use of foreign investment and study on and make preferential policies on use of foreign investment in Guangdong

 

Great efforts should be made to put the Circular of the Station Council on Several Measures for Expanding Opening-up and Actively Using Foreign Investment into practice and study on and make preferential policies for use of foreign investment in Guangdong. The programs to replace the administrative examination and approval mechanism with registration mechanism for foreign investment should be promoted. The new Catalogue of Industries for Guiding Foreign Investment should be put into practice, and the Negative List management mode should be extended in an all-around way. Concerning policies on foreign investment, qualifications and licenses for operations related to foreign investment, standardization, government procurement, investment and financing, foreign and domestic investors should be treated equally to create a good environment for fair competition. Provincial working conference on foreign investment should be held to discuss about and make arrangement for the work related to foreign investment in 2017 to spare no efforts to build “high-intensity magnetic field” to absorb foreign investment.

 

4.       Make good organization for major investment promotion activities, especially those targeting at the European and North American regions

 

Investment promotion activities should be held in European and North American regions following the visits of leading officials from the CPC Guangdong Committee and the People’s Government of Guangdong to these regions. The China (Guangdong)—USA Investment Cooperation Conference will  be held in April 2017, and the China-Europe Forum on Innovation, Cooperation and Investment will be held in the second half of 2017. The conference of branches of Guangdong Chamber of Commerce home and abroad will be held to invite entrepreneurs as members of the Guangdong Chamber of International Commerce and the branches of Guangdong Chamber of Commerce in other provinces to get back to Guangdong to make surveys for investment.

 

5.       Make innovation of investment promotion modes and establish Guangdong Industrial Investment Promotion Alliance

 

The Guangdong Industrial Investment Promotion Alliance should be established, and the investment promotion organizations should take a lead to build channels and networks for industrial investment promotion under the participation of leading and supporting manufacturers, industrial parks and carries, industrial associations, specialized service organizations and think tank in Guangdong. A think tank for investment promotion should be established, and emphasis should be laid on developing strategic cooperation relations with global top-class consulting organizations, such as McKinsey & Co, IMB Consulting and Roland Berger, to solicit advice for decision marking for investment promotion. Explorations should be made to carry out investment promotion through intermediaries to give full play to the proficiency of the intermediaries in industries and investment information and the wide coverage of their service networks to share the information about investment and join the hands to introduce high-quality projects.

 

6.       Promote construction of global business and trade network and establish platforms for sharing resources within overseas business and trade service network

 

The functions of the offices of Guangdong province in Europe should be given full play and the construction of platforms for collecting information about “bring in” and “go global” projects and promoting cooperation in these projects should be launched to attract significant projects to Guangdong.  Platforms for sharing resources within overseas business and trade service network and conference and consultation mechanisms should be established to make unified arrangement and coordination for related departments directly under the provincial government and the overseas representative offices  of the city-level governments to fulfill the major tasks.

 

7.       Set up clusters of foreign investment and enhance construction of major platforms for attracting foreign investment

 

Researches should be made to introduce guiding opinions and related measures for attracting more foreign investment to economic development zones and international cooperation parks. Great efforts should be made to pilot related planning and construction, project introduction and management, park management, investment and financing, public service and talent introduction modes to set up a number of clusters of foreign investment.

 

Management of Fortune 500 enterprises talk about new advantages of Guangdong for attracting foreign investment

 

Owen Chan, chairman & CEO of Cisco Greater China:

 

Three major advantages of Guangdong for attracting high-end foreign investment:

 

Owen Chan, chairman & CEO of Cisco Greater China, believed that Guangdong has three major advantages for attracting high-end foreign investment. The first is the optimized opening-up pattern. Guangzhou is putting the market diversification strategy into in-depth practice, enhancing the business and trade cooperation with the western developed countries and the Fortune 500 enterprises, taking initiative to participate in the construction of the “Belt and Road” and strengthening the connectivity of infrastructure to make great efforts to promote cooperation in business and trade and investment.

 

The second is the integrated modern industrial system. Guangdong has set industrial transformation and upgrading and mid-range and high-end development as the main tasks for mode transformation and restructuring. It is tightly adhering to its role for supporting national GDP growth and national strategic economic restructuring to accelerate the development of the modern industrial system centering on advanced manufacturing, modern service and strategic emerging industries.

 

The third is excellent independent innovation ability. Guangdong has launched the construction of the National Independent Innovation Demonstration Area at the Pearl River Delta and the Pilot Province for Comprehensive Innovation and Reform to promote the construction of the open-type regional innovation system from a pragmatic perspective. Great efforts are being made to incubate high-tech enterprises and new-type research and development organizations. Preparation is being made for the establishment of Guangdong National Big Science Center and the new Guangdong Academy of Sciences, marking the beginning of the construction of high-level universities, including high-level universities of science and engineering, and the development of key disciplines.

 

Zheng Daqing, senior vice president of Business and Market Development of BASF in Greater China:

 

Only when Guangdong continuously optimizes the innovation environment can Fortune 500 enterprises have a better development

 

Zheng Daqing, senior vice president of Business and Market Development of BASF in Greater China, believed that the innovation strength of Guangdong has been continuously improved in recent years. The Economic and Social Development Report of Guangdong Province indicated that, in 2011, the investment of Guangdong in research and development accounted for less than 2% of the local GDP, which rose to 2.5% in 2015; Guangdong has more than 700,000 research staff, ranking first nationwide. In addition, the number of high-tech enterprises of Guangdong has been increasing at a high speed. BASF expects to have better connections with the innovative enterprises in different industries in Guangdong.

 

Zheng said that, Guangdong boasts a number of well-developed industries, covering autos, household appliances, electronics, communications, new materials and agriculture, and a number of excellent local enterprises represented by Huawei and BYD have been working hard to catch up with the world cutting-edge technologies. BASF has production bases and marketing networks all over the county and has been expanding its research and development capacity in the Asian-Pacific region. BASF expects to participate in and promote the research and development and innovation projects that are based in Guangdong to serve the Chinese and even global markets. BASF is also engaged in cooperation with Chinese scientific research institutions, for example, the cooperation with South China Agricultural University in research of substitutes for antibiotic growth promoters. BASF focuses on raw materials and market to consider the feasibility of investment, while Guangdong has products that have great influence in the markets of South China and even the whole China. The mid-term objective of the enterprise is to realize localized production of 75% products sold in the Asia-Pacific market.

 

In addition, Zheng also said that, Guangzhou has been continuously optimizing the investment and business environment, including improving the transportation facilities and other infrastructure in Maoming, changing the roles of the functional departments of government and enhancing the awareness of service of the departments at the grass-roots level. Therefore, BASF is full of expectations for the further optimization of the investment and business investment.

 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou, February 16, 2017