2016 was the first year for Jiangxi province to implement the overall opening up strategy and create the situation of two-way opening up. Thanks to the efforts over a year, the province has witnessed outstanding results in the use of foreign capital. In the first eight months of 2017, the province newly set up 299 foreign-funded enterprises, with the contracted investment reaching 5.754 billion U.S. dollars, 16.36 percent more than in the same period of the previous year and the amount of foreign capital used reached 7.288 billion U.S. dollars, 8.95 percent more than in the same period of the previous year, registering growth for 8 successive months.
In waterway shipping, by the end of the previous year, the province had completed 614 kilometers of high-grade shipping routes. The 175-km Nanchang-Hukou navigation course in the Ganjiang River had been upgraded from the third class standards to the second class standard. The tonnage navigable all year round from Nanchang to the Yangtze River rose from 1,000 tons to 2,000 tons.
In policy, the province has constantly been deepening the reform in the area of relaxation of control, strengthening management and services, relaxing the market access for foreign capital and establishing a complaint mechanism and developing new service modes, using the nanny service to ensure the environment for foreign investors to do business in the province.
"In 2016, we sent out 2,600 containers from the port of Nanchang. 90 percent of our products are shipped from Nanchang to Shanghai, where they are loaded onto ships heading for Germany. The cost is low," said Yu Rong, manager of the customs logistics department of Fresenius Kabi (Nanchang).
Fresenius Kabi in the Nanchang Economic Development Zone is a German capital company specializing in the production of one-off medical instruments, an affiliate of the Fresenius Kabi Group in the world's top 500. It began production in Nanchang from 2002. The factory has undergone three major expansions to become a major base for one-off medical instruments in China and the Asian-Pacific region, with the output value shooting up from 60 million yuan in 2007 to 346 million yuan in 2016. It is also the collection and distribution center of the Asian-Pacific region.
In May 2017, the State Tax Bureau of the Nanchang Economic Development Zone has chosen eight enterprises in the zone for trying paperless export refund operations. The Fresenius Kabi (Nanchang) is one of them because of long-time operation in the zone and stable output. The practice has saved the company in paper, time and human resources. "We used to spend a week preparing paper materials for export tax refund. But now it takes only a day," said Wu Shan, accountant of the company.
According to the Department of Commerce of Jiangxi Province, the province is boasting six major advantageous industries, namely, medicine, electronic information, automobile, aviation, photovoltaic power and food processing. All the industries have foreign capital. Hong Kong remains the biggest source of foreign capital, accounting for 72.25 percent of the total foreign capital used by the province.
Wang Hongguang, head of the foreign capital management section of the Department of Commerce of Jiangxi Province, said that since the beginning of 2017, the province has adopted a series of policies favorable for attracting foreign capital. On May 22, the provincial government issued a document named Implementation Opinions on Further Opening up and Creating new Advantages for Attracting Foreign Investment, outlining the areas for further opening up, fine-tuned the preferential policies for attracting foreign capital, optimized the environment for doing businesses, intensified investment promotion measures and strengthened organizational support.
The province also issued a document named Notice on Implementing Catalogue for Guidance of Foreign Investment (revised in 2017) and Expanding Utilization of Foreign Investment, combined the actual situation in Jiangxi, guiding the further opening up in service, manufacturing, mining and other areas, encouraging introduction of encouraged projects. On this basis, the province issued Notice on Further Optimizing Investment Environment to Protect Investors' Rights and Interests, taking measures to remove all kinds of barriers that restrict investment and taking stock of all problems such as failing to perform policy commitments and non-performance of contracts signed.
At the same time, all cities encourage multinational corporations to set up regional headquarters and strengthen fiscal and financing support. A more systematic and better system for using foreign capital is taking shape.
Apart from policy support, the province has held a series of investment promotion activities 2017. On September 8, the province held a global promotion activity in Beijing, arousing extensive attention and strong repercussion. In mid-August, the province governor Liu Qi led a delegation to Czech, Austria and Germany to carry out investment promotion activities, seeking cooperation with Europe in such major areas as aviation, automobile and parts and accessories and modern finance. The delegation signed 17 agreements on cooperative projects, with a total volume of 480 million euros. On August 30, the province held the 15th Jiangxi-Taiwan economic, trade and cultural cooperation and exchange fair in Jiujiang, signing 184 investment projects, totaling 14.65 billion U.S. dollar worth.
In the next step, Jiangxi will boost its supporting abilities in infrastructure, build a number of major infrastructure facilities and industrial projects that concern the whole situation in the province, with the emphasis on pushing the 980 large and medium-sized projects that have a total investment of about 1.4 trillion yuan. It strives to complete 360 billion yuan of investment within the year.
In attracting foreign investment, Ma Zhihui, director of the Economics Institute of the provincial Academy of Social Sciences, recommended the province to attract extra-large foreign-funded enterprises that have products with a high technology content, high added values and that have a leading role in stimulating the economic development of the province. Some development parks and zones should continue to extend and improve their industrial chains to make the dominant industries bigger and stronger.
A single purchase
