Foreign companies have significantly accelerated the establishment of research and development centers in China since the beginning of this year, marking a new trend in foreign investment strategies within the Chinese market.
Recently, German parts supplier Bosch Group signed a contract with the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) in east China's Jiangsu Province to invest 10 billion yuan (about 1.41 billion U.S. dollars) over the next five years to develop an innovative project of intelligent driving technologies.
This new initiative will focus on researching and producing advanced and full-stack smart driving systems, as well as related hardware and software products for intelligent cockpits, aiming to facilitate the smart upgrade of the automotive industry and export technological achievements to global markets.
Stephan Lampel, executive vice president of business operations, the Board of Directors of Bosch Mobility Group in China, affirmed the market value of China and its strong international competitiveness.
"If you want to be competitive in the global market, you must also be competitive here in China. And that is one reason why we are doing this investment. Currently, we have about 100 products when we talk about a smart cockpit, both in mass production as well as in development. And also when we talk about intelligent driving, we have corporations with strong and leading Chinese customers, which we are aiming for," he said.
Since Bosch established its presence in Suzhou 26 years ago, it has evolved from producing single technology products like braking systems to becoming an important innovation hub with seven business divisions that encompass cutting-edge fields such as smart driving and industrial internet.
The decision to "invest 10 billion yuan over the next five years" reflects the company's strong strategic commitment to the future and its confidence in China's market.
"And what we see as a recent development that we have very much locally developed solutions, the smart cockpit solution and the other solution for the high segment are very nice examples for that. But also the decoupled power break products which are brought into the market first here in China. So Suzhou and also China for us is no longer a manufacturing hub. It becomes more and more an innovation hub and an innovation driver. And the investments in this will continue, because, as I said, the transformation in automotive market is happening mostly here, and we will invest here in order to leverage this local innovation power and also the local market," he said.
Focusing on research and development in China to serve the global market is becoming a shared consensus among multinational companies investing in the country.
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche has announced an investment of 380 million Swiss francs (about 475.44 million U.S. dollars) in China to establish a new production and research and development center for reagents and equipment. This marks Roche Pharmaceuticals' largest single investment project in the country.
China's Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology have implemented a series of policies to further encourage foreign investment in establishing research and development centers in China.
These measures support technological innovation, enhance research and development convenience, promote the recruitment of overseas talent, and improve intellectual property protection, creating a favorable policy environment for the development of foreign-funded research and development centers.
As of now, there are already 317 recognized foreign-funded research and development centers in Suzhou. In the first eight months of this year, Suzhou attracted actual foreign investment of 5.208 billion U.S. dollars, marking a year-on-year increase of 4.8 percent.
"We are working to extend, supplement, and strengthen their industrial chains, helping them invest in better industries to export our innovative achievements in application scenarios from China. This allows their partners in other regions around the world to share in the fruits of China's development," said Gu Xi, director of the foreign investment department of Suzhou's commerce bureau.
Foreign companies expand research, development footprint in China
