A drone photo taken on June 23, 2024 shows vehicles to be loaded for transportation at Yantai Port in east China's Shangdong Province. The multi-mode handling volume of commodity vehicles of Yantai Port reached 288,000 in the first five months of 2024, an increase of 30.2 percent over the same period in 2023. In recent years, Yantai Port has stepped up efforts in building a logistic hub for commodity vehicles. It has now opened up 14 commodity vehicle logistics lines. (Xinhua/Zhu Zheng)
BEIJING, March 27 (Xinhua) -- BMW is actively expanding the presence in China, building momentum for the future, and pursuing greater growth while continuing to invest in the country, said Oliver Zipse, chairman of the board of management of BMW Group, at the China Development Forum (CDF) 2025 held in Beijing from March 23 to 24.
"Continuous investment", "expanded presence" and "greater confidence" were recurring themes among multinational executives discussing their outlook on investing in China in this year's CDF.
Industry insiders noted that this event sends a positive signal about China's unswerving commitment to promoting high-standard opening-up, further boosting the confidence of multinational companies in the Chinese market.
-- Sending a strong signal of further opening up
"China will expand institutional opening-up and take the initiative to open wider and advance unilateral opening-up in a well-ordered way, so as to promote high-standard opening-up," stated Long Guoqiang, vice president of the Development Research Center of the State Council (DRC) at the event.
The key to high-standard opening-up lies in expanding institutional opening-up. This year's CDF sent an even stronger signal of steadily expanding institutional opening-up.
Wang Yiming, vice chairman of China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) and former vice president of the DRC, noted that institutional opening-up aims to create a market-oriented, law-based and international business environment. Benchmarking against the World Bank's new Business Enabling Environment (BEE) assessment, China will accelerate the reform of the business environment.
In addition, Wang Chunying, president of the Export-Import Bank of China suggested further relaxing restrictions on foreign investment in service sectors such as finance, telecommunications, education and healthcare, while shortening the negative lists for foreign market access, so as to boost the opening-up and orderly competition of the services sector. Meanwhile, she also stressed the need to establish and refine institutional frameworks and regulatory models that align with high-standard institutional opening-up.
-- Creating new opportunities for win-win cooperation
China has witnessed a surge in investment ascribed to increasing efforts in expanding opening-up. More enterprises are proving with real actions that investing in China is investing in the future.
In recent years, China has kept expanding high-standard opening-up and improving the institutional mechanisms on FDI promotion and service, creating a favorable business environment with vast market opportunities for foreign-funded enterprises, noted Saravoot Yoovidhya, CEO of TCP Group.
According to Laurent Freixe, CEO of Nestlé Group, China has continuously expanded institutional opening-up, proactively integrated into high-standard international trade frameworks, and made great efforts in developing new rules for balancing openness and security. "This gives us even greater confidence in investing in China," said Freixe.
Yoovidhya added that TCP Group will step up investment in China, focusing on high-quality capacity building, promoting industrial clustering across the food and beverage chain, and speeding up digital and intelligent transformation.
Achieving stable economic growth in China and globally requires broader and deeper cooperation among all stakeholders. In this regard, multinational companies can play a significant role, stated Roland Busch, chairman of the managing board, president and CEO of Siemens Group.
At the CDF 2025, many multinational executives expressed firm confidence in the future of Chinese market, and reaffirmed their commitment to expanding their presence, increasing investment, and growing alongside China's economy.
(Edited by Yang Linlin with Xinhua Silk Road, linlinyanglyn@163.com)
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