Foreign investors expressed confidence in the Chinese market at the the Global Investment Promotion Conference held on Friday in the city of Suzhou in east China's Jiangsu Province.
Themed "Invest in Suzhou for a Win-win Future", the conference attracted more than 1,000 participants, including representatives from 429 of the Fortune Global 500 companies.
Known for its beautiful canals and rich cultural heritage, Suzhou is also an industrial powerhouse and home to one of the largest industrial parks in China.
Total investment for the projects signed at the conference amounted to around 372 billion yuan (about 52.4 billion U.S. dollars), including 30 projects from the Fortune Global 500 companies. These projects span various high-tech industries, including new energy, high-end equipment, advanced materials, and biopharmaceuticals.
At the conference, executives from major corporations discussed their increasing investment and collaboration in China, highlighting the country's economic appeal and supportive industrial environment.
"We are confident in expanding our business within China, a significant market for our company. For Japan, it should keep close ties with China," said Keiichi Morikawa, President of IHI Rotating Machinery Engineering.
The conference also highlighted Suzhou's strategic focus on ten industrial clusters and 30 industrial chains.
"In March last year, we established Olympus' first overseas production base in Suzhou Industrial Park. The support we received was pivotal, and we are looking to deepen our research and development and other cooperations with China," said Hidenao Tsuchiya, Executive Officer of Olympus Corp.
The investment landscape for foreign companies in China is evolving, with a shift from basic investment to mergers and acquisitions that capitalize on China's high-quality development model, which extends even to the biomedical sector.
"We fully utilize the strengths in bioluminescence immunity products that local companies have, in terms of single products, patents and research and development, to counterbalance some of Merieux's product line or channel disadvantages," said Zhang Fuhai, senior director at BioMerieux China.
Foreign investors express confidence in Chinese market at Global Investment Promotion Conference
Multiple cities across China, including Beijing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Shenyang, have eased restrictions on home purchases and loan extensions to revitalize the real estate market, which is expected to improve market expectations as the newly adopted incentive measures take effect.
Beijing recently released its 2024 Housing Development Annual Plan, which provides for the allocation of 1,060 hectares of land for residential purposes, maintaining stable land supply. This includes plans to supply approximately 6 million square meters of commercial housing and to build 70,000 units of affordable rental housing, along with delivering 80,000 units of various affordable housing.
Since late April, multiple cities in southern province of Guangdong have rolled out new real estate policies to shore up the market.
Guangzhou's Huadu District launched a one-year "trade-in" promotion for commercial housing starting on Wednesday, offering multiple discount incentives and allowing participants to unconditionally refund deposits within a certain period.
"The 25 participating companies are mostly large centrally-administered enterprises, state-owned enterprises, or major real estate companies. Their housing units primarily focus on meeting essential needs or providing improvements to current living conditions," said Huang Feifei, secretary general of the Guangzhou Huadu District Real Estate Industry Association.
On Monday, Foshan, a city adjacent to Guangzhou, issued a notice involving 13 measures to incentivize the real estate market.
The measures include supporting the "trade-in" of housing, increasing support for provident fund loans to purchase homes, and implementing a dynamic adjustment mechanism for first-time home loan interest rates. Non-local residents with legal ownership of residential properties in Foshan can apply for household registration, with their spouses and minor children allowed to gain the permanent residential status.
Earlier this month, Hangzhou City in east China's Zhejiang Province announced the easing of home purchase restrictions, including the removal of the housing lottery system and purchase qualifications for commercial housing.
Non-local residents who acquire legal property rights in Hangzhou are now eligible to apply for the permanent residential status.
In northeast China's Liaoning Province, the provincial capital city of Shenyang has announced measures to ease restrictions on application for the permanent residential status, in efforts to attract more people to settle in the city.
These measures include removing the quota limit for points-based household registration, expanding the scope of academic-based applicants, and relaxing criteria for property-based relocation and collective household registrations.
A report recently released by the People's Bank of China -- China's central bank -- suggested a comprehensive study on disposing of existing real estate inventories and modifying new housing policies.
The report advocates city-specific policies and precise implementation of differentiated housing credit policies to better support home purchases for essential needs and improvements, meet the reasonable financing needs of real estate enterprises, and promote stable and healthy development of the real estate market.
Chinese cities modify real estate policies to boost market confidence
