Major foreign-invested projects in China gaining speed in implementation

China

Major foreign-invested projects in China gaining speed in implementation

2025-07-27 14:17 Last Updated At：07-28 00:57

Major foreign-invested projects in China have gained speed in implementation as policy measures introduced early this year gradually take effect.

In Huizhou City of South China's Guangdong Province, ExxonMobil's mega ethylene project officially started operation this month.

As the first major petrochemical project constructed solely by a U.S. company in China, the project, with a total investment of 10 billion U.S. dollars, will help the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area become a global petrochemical industry power house, said Li Xingjun, chairman of Exxon-Mobil (Huizhou) Chemical Co Ltd.

"We can see a solid foundation for manufacturing industry here, a complete industrial chain and a high degree of market openness. In the future, we will jointly promote the upgrading of the industrial chain in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and boost the development of the mid-to-high-end value chain of China's petrochemical industry," Li said.

In Qingdao City of east China's Shandong Province, Japanese motor manufacturer Nidec has just inaugurated its new industrial park this month.

The new park, the biggest one Nidec has in China, spans an area equivalent to 15 football fields and is capable of delivering 18 million motors and over 20 million electronic inverters per year.

In north China's Tianjin Municipality, Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk signed a memorandum of cooperation early this month to initiate an 800-million-yuan (about 111.9 million U.S. dollars) project to expand the quality-control laboratory at its Tianjin production facility.

Located in the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area, the Novo Nordisk Tianjin production site is one of the company's strategic global manufacturing hubs, employing approximately 1,800 people.

The facility commenced construction on a sterile production expansion project valued at approximately four billion yuan in March 2024.

Analysts said the quality and structure of the foreign investment in China has been improved as a series of policy measures to stabilize foreign investment take effect.

The number of newly established foreign-invested enterprises in China rose by 11.7 percent year-on-year to 30,014 in the first half of 2025, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

In the same period, investment in the manufacturing sector reached 109.06 billion yuan, while high-tech industries attracted 127.87 billion yuan.

Twenty U.S. states sue Trump's fee hike of H-1B visas

California and a coalition of 19 other states are suing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump over its policy to hike fees on new H-1B visa petitions to 100,000 U.S. dollars, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Friday.

The Trump administration announced in September to impose the fee for H-1B visas, claiming that the non-immigrant visa program "has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor."

Bonta said in a declaration that, as president, Trump has no authority to impose this fee. The declaration pointed out that significantly increasing this visa fee has brought various adverse effects on industries such as education and healthcare in the United States.

Trump announced in September the imposition of sharply higher visa fees, saying the move is intended to ensure that the U.S. brings in high-skilled talent that cannot be replaced by American workers. Previously, companies typically paid several thousand U.S. dollars in fees for H-1B visas.

U.S. media analyses say the new high visa fees will affect technology giants such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa in the United States that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations. This visa is designed for highly qualified individuals, including those in fields such as technology, engineering, and healthcare.