The latest status of China's foreign trade

Recently, the Ministry of Commerce formally issued the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for Utilization of Foreign Investment", which clarified the guiding ideology, development goals and key tasks for the use of foreign capital during the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan period, and put forward a series of expected quantitative indicators, including the cumulative actual absorption of foreign investment. Invest 700 billion U.S. dollars, and the high-tech industry will absorb 30% of foreign capital by 2025.

During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, 204,000 foreign-invested enterprises were newly established, an increase of 61.8% over the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period; during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the status of a major country in utilizing foreign capital will be stabilized.Since the beginning of this year, the enthusiasm of multinational capital to invest in China has not diminished. From January to September, the actual use of foreign capital across the country hit a record high over the same period, reaching 859.51 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.6%; 899 large projects with newly established or increased contractual foreign capital of more than US$100 million, a year-on-year increase of 56.6%.

Taking a global perspective, China’s absorption of foreign capital as a proportion of the total global transnational direct investment has increased from 6.7% in 2015 to 14.9% in 2020. From 2017 to 2020, it has maintained its status as the world’s second-largest foreign capital inflow country for four consecutive years.

Specifically, the "Plan" proposes to guide more foreign investment in digital transformation, energy conservation and environmental protection, ecological environment, green services and other industries, to participate in the construction of new infrastructure; support foreign-invested enterprises to develop R&D and design, financial services, modern logistics, and supply chains Production services such as management and information services and life services such as medical care, health, elderly care, childcare, tourism, housekeeping, etc.; support foreign-invested enterprises to establish global and regional headquarters and R&D centers, and participate in national science and technology plan projects.

The latest questionnaire survey by the Ministry of Commerce shows that among more than 3,000 key foreign-funded enterprises, 93.3% of them have optimistic expectations for their future development prospects. Recent reports issued by foreign chambers of commerce in the United States, Europe, and Japan show that nearly two-thirds of US-funded companies, 59% of European-funded companies, and 36.6% of Japanese-funded companies plan to expand their investment in China.

Photo by Tom Fisk from Pexels