The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in the heart of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone, has been building a global investment promotion system and implementing a 'three-year double increase program" to inject a new drive into the efforts of attracting foreign investment over the past three years. It has attracted some world's top 500 such as Google, Ikea and Fuji Heavy Industries. Up to 2016, it had attracted 89 major projects each with a contracted investment of 10 million U.S. dollars.
In 2016, the region formulated A Three-Year Program Action Plan for Attracting Foreign Investment (2016-2018), charting the course for the whole region to attract foreign investment in a precise and scientific way and achieving a string of successes. From January 2016 to June 2017, the whole region attracted 1048.1 billion yuan of foreign investment, fulfilling 52.4 percent of its target. The amount of foreign investment actually used reached 7.189 billion U.S. dollars, 50.63 percent of the target.
Stimulate reform to release the new reform dividends. The region has further optimized the links and processes of examining and approving foreign investment to reduce the time as much as possible, thus speeding up the examination and approval. The seven registration items for alteration were cut into four. It committed to finish the job from 22 days to the very day on the spot. The time for examination and approval of major alterations was shortened to five working days. It was the first time for the regional governmental departments to open a service complaint platform, bringing the services toward an open economy.
Revise policies to push investment facilitation. The region has revised the indicative investment guide catalog (2011 edition) and carried out clearing the provisions that cooperated with Sino-US agreement negotiations and came out with its own policies specially for promoting the processing trade development in the region. It revised the Guangxi Business Investment Guide, A Compilation of Policies and Regulations for Attracting Investment in Guangxi and Investment Promotion Project Volume to facilitate investors.
Engage in grand investment promotion to realize pluralism in attracting overseas investment. It put the emphasis on guiding foreign investors to invest in advanced manufacturing, finance, commerce and trade, logistics, tourism, consulting and other modern services. It carried out in a down-to-earth way the activities of promoting foreign investment, giving prominence to investors from Europe, the United States and other developed countries. It has given a big support to the Sino-French Chamber of Commerce in Nanning in its activities of "city of tomorrow and market of the future". It cooperated with the American Wal-mart in holding a fair on Wal-Mart investment projects. It successfully held the 2014 Sino (Guangxi)-Hungary Cooperation and Investment Promotion in Hungary. It held a Sino (Guangxi)-British industrial connection meeting in Xiamen. It held the Sino-European industrial cooperation and investment discussions and the multinational Guangxi commercial opportunities dialogue in Liuzhou and Nanning, giving a big push to a number of European and American multinationals to cooperate with the Guangxi development parks and zones.
Strengthen services and coordinate foreign investment projects. The region has actively asked for the business situation and difficulties of foreign-funded enterprises, helped coordinate and resolve preferential policies for Wal-mart, Parkson, Watsons and other foreign-funded enterprises, accelerated the landing and increase of foreign investment projects.
Expand channels and establish a long-term cooperation mechanism. The region has opened up the channels for using foreign capital and cooperated with foreign embassies, consulates, the China-Britain Business Council, AmCham China, China-German Chamber of Commerce, the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China, Investment Promotion Agency of Japan, International Enterprise Singapore, Hong Kong Trade Development Council and nearly 100 government, chambers of commerce and associations from 40 countries and regions.
Put up platforms to help development parks and zones in attracting foreign investment. At the Sino-Hungary investment and cooperation promotion, the Sino-British industrial connection fair and the Sino-European industrial cooperation promotion meeting and other occasions, the region took the initiative to help state-class development parks and zones and the Nanning High-tech zone, the Liudong New Area, the Qinzhou bonded port zone, the Guangxi-ASEAN economic development zone, the Sino-Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park and the Pingxiang comprehensive bonded zone to connect with overseas enterprises. It called at the European and US embassies in China and the China headquarters of multinationals to talk about business connections to direct foreign investment to flow into the major development parks and zones.
In general, Guangxi has assumed the characteristics of "one optimization, two increases and three high-techs" in foreign investment utilization, and the sources of foreign investment are optimized. Hong Kong, ASEAN and EU are the main sources of foreign investment in Guangxi, accounting for 54 percent, 18.9 percent and 14 percent in total, respectively.
In the process of attracting investment, the region has implemented eight major actions focused on four strategies, that is, promoting transition and upgrading of industries, unifying regional development, building infrastructure, attracting foreign investment, promoting domestic investment, doing investment promotion for development zones and parks, developing county industries, optimizing investment environment and clarifying the contents of actions and units responsibility.
Different from investment promotion in the past, the region has closely linked the orientation of investment promotion and settled projects with the actual conditions of the real economy. It was learned from the regional investment promotion bureau that since the beginning of 2016, the whole region has attracted 5,057 domestic cooperation projects, with the contracted investment reaching 1.0048 trillion yuan and approved and put on record 224 foreign-funded enterprises, with the contracted investment reaching 4.99 billion U.S. dollars. The domestic and foreign investment amount was 1.66 times that during the 12th five-year plan period.
To improve mechanisms to ensure investment put in place, the regional government has set up an investment promotion committee to make unified planning and arrangements and coordination to guide the investment promotion work in the region. The region came out with Implementation Plan for Global Investment Promotion Network Construction, deciding to set up investment promotion representative offices in ASEAN, Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea as well as in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. It will appoint advisers to provide guidance to investment promotion to extend toward countries along the Belt and Road.
As an important gateway for the Belt and Road Initiative, Guangxi highly values attracting and using foreign capital and constantly relaxing the restrictions on the access to industries and opens up new areas for foreign investment. By holding the Guangxi tour by multinationals and the world top 500 and the Guangxi tour by Hong Kong businesses and a dozen other activities, it has brought about steady growth in the use of foreign capital.
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