On March 13 local time, the Promotion of 2017 Fortune Global Forum Guangzhou, jointly sponsored by Guangzhou municipal government and Fortune, was launched in New York. At the event, Cai Chaolin, vice mayor of Guangzhou, introduced Guangzhou’s urban development concept on opening up and innovation. Enterprises representatives of Guangzhou and the US discussed “how can multinationals succeed in China”. By the end of January, 2017, Guangzhou has totally approved nearly 1,000 enterprises directly invested by the USA investors.

 

“It took only 50 days for us to reach an agreement; and 60 days later, the factory started construction.” Cai Chaolin presented “Guangzhou resolution” with the most vivid example and captured attentions of all entrepreneurs at the event. On March 1, 2017, Foxconn 10.5 Generation 8K Display Full Ecological Industrial Park started construction in Zengcheng, Guangzhou. At the ground-breaking ceremony, Terry Gou, chairman of Foxconn, praised highly of Guangzhou’s high efficiency, charms and determination.

 

“There are many such examples, including Cisco Smart City project, Microsoft Cloud and Mobile Technology Incubation Plan, Siemens Smart-Ecology Technology Demonstration Center, Google AdWords Experience Center, LG LED Display projects and so on,” said Cai. Guangzhou is home to hundreds of thousands foreign-funded enterprises and investment of up to 288 Fortune 500 corporations.

 

At the promotion, FedEx, McKinsey and other US leading enterprises have paid close attention to how to find trade and cooperation opportunities between China and the US. Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx, said the corporation has established the Asia-Pacific Transfer Center in Guangzhou and many of its customers have entered China through this center. Asia-Pacific Center has become an important hub. Alan Murray, editor-in-chief of Fortune, said under the background of rising trade protectionism, it is good to have dialogue and this is also the reason to hold the Fortune Global Forum. “Guangzhou has an important position in the free trade of world.” It is hard to find any other city like Guangzhou across the world which has maintained foreign trade for such a long time. This is an important reason for Fortune to hold the Global Forum in Guangzhou.

 

As a witness of the US-China trade relations, Guangzhou has kept close trade contacts with the US. According to the data provided by Guangzhou Municipal Commission of Commerce, by the end of January 2017, Guangzhou has totally approved 992 directly invested enterprises of the US, actually used foreign capital US$1.55424 billion. In January 2017, the US newly invested in five enterprises in Guangzhou. On the other hand, as of March 1, 2017, Guangzhou has invested and set up 166 enterprises (institutions) in the US in total, and the contracted investment of the Chinese party amounted to US$651.5 million. Guangzhou Development District (GDD) is the most concentrated area of the US-funded enterprises in South China. The US enterprises of the fine chemical engineering, food and beverage, electronic information, biomedicine and other fields have invested in GDD. The statistics show that the total investment of the US enterprises reached about US$4.0 billion in total. The foreign investment in actual use accumulated to US$1.67 billion. GDD has introduced more than 250 projects, with output value of nearly RMB100 billion.

 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou, March 15, 2017