Beijing
Foreign-invested companies have voiced optimism about the Chinese market, stressing its irreplaceable role in their businesses and pledging further investment in the world’s second largest economy.
Rachel Duan, President/CEO of General Electric’s Global Growth Organization, said China has always been the Company’s key strategic market since it started doing business in the country in 1906. “For any Co, China is a strategic market that cannot be ignored,” she declared, noting that “it is a privilege that GE is a participant, witness and beneficiary of China’s social and economic development”.
Despite US-China trade tension, the value of orders that GE received in China exceeded $8 billion last year. The Co has also announced it will open a new offshore wind energy factory in the city of Jieyang and established a new operation and development centre in Guangzhou in South China’s Guangdong province, in a bid to meeting China’s growing demand for offshore wind energy.
GE is just one of the many foreign companies that remain bullish about the Chinese market. Vanguard Group, the world’s biggest provider of mutual funds, considers China as one of the most crucial and indispensable markets worldwide.
“Vanguard has strong confidence and determination about taking root in China in the long run, and the Co is committed to participating in the opening-up of China’s financial market,” said Charles Lin, CEO of Vanguard Asia and Chairman of Vanguard Investment Management (Shanghai) Ltd. Despite a short history of a little more than 30 years, China’s capital market has developed rapidly and demonstrated great potential.
“China is currently the world’s third largest stock and bond market, so we are very optimistic about China’s capital market and we will grow alongside its development,” Lin said, adding that he believes that China’s financial market will become more and more open and the current pace of opening-up is much faster than expected. “China’s financial and asset management markets are full of vitality and opportunity. As individual
investors’ demand for wealth management products keeps growing and regulatory authorities continue to introduce proactive and open policies, the market will be provided even bigger boosts,” Lin said.
The American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai said in its recently released 2019 China Business Report that more than 47% of the respondents to a survey expect to increase their investment in China this year. The respondents also reported an improving regulatory environment and significant signs of progress in the country’s operational environment for foreign companies.—Courtesy: China Daily.
