Business leaders attending the 7th Qingdao Multinationals Summit said China's expanding innovation capacity, vast market scale, and deepening industrial transformation are creating compelling new reasons for global companies to stay and invest.
The three-day summit opened in Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province on Monday, attracting 357 multinational companies from 44 countries and regions across the world.
Many participants voiced strong confidence in the Chinese market, highlighting its growing innovation capacity and continued importance to the global economy.
"I think China is indeed irreplaceable for European or for multinational companies. This upbeat sentiment is driven by the fact that these companies finally get it and know how to adjust to the new China story. They know how to tap into the Chinese innovation potential. They know how to optimize their cost, their speed to market in order to cope with Chinese competition, but also to bring all of this to the global market and to actually learn from their Chinese competitors," Denis Depoux, global managing director of Roland Berger.
"China remains one of the most interesting and profitable countries in the world to have business. Because China moving from the price to the value, from 'made in China' to 'powered in China'. Because the country grows up. We are here to learn about what China can give us like the part of the future that we have to live," said Gianni Di Giovanni, Chairman of energy company Eni China B.V., also vice president of the European Chamber of Commerce in China.
Charles Compson, chief commercial officer of Almatis, a global leader in alumina-based products, highlighted the long-term opportunities embedded in China's industrial upgrading.
"We always see continued growth and advancement in China. It's the leader in much of the innovation and technology, and many foreign nationals are putting much of their business in manufacturing. As much of the technology and semiconductors is now being built up and developed within China as part of the 15th Five-Year Plan, we see this as an advancement which will go for the next decade or more," said Compson.
Centered on the theme "Multinationals and China: Advancing with the 15th Five-Year Plan for Innovation and Future", the summit features an opening ceremony, a forum on the high-quality development of multinationals and a series of parallel sessions.
Business leaders hail China’s innovation, market scale at Qingdao summit
Business leaders hail China’s innovation, market scale at Qingdao summit
