China's use of foreign investment rebounds in H1

Photo taken on Jan 7, 2020 shows China-produced sedans at Tesla's gigafactory in Shanghai, East China. [Photo/Xinhua]

Utilization of foreign investment in China rebounded in the first half of the year, and it rose 8.4 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, according to Securities Times on Wednesday.

As of Aug 4, 11 out of 12 provinces and cities that had released data on the actual use of foreign investment in the first half saw a year-on-year increase, except Guangdong, which also saw a narrowing rate of decrease.

Data shows Jiangsu actually used foreign investment worth $12.46 billion, up 0.2 percent year-on-year in the first half, ranking first among the 12 provinces and cities in terms of the amount of capital. Hainan, Heilongjiang and Fujian realized double-digit growth. Jiangxi's total cash inflow ranked ninth in China and first in Central China. Guangdong's actual use of foreign investment in high-tech services rose by 75.2 percent year-on-year.

Major projects have played a further prominent role in the use of foreign investment against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first half, 101 projects with actual investment above $30 million were launched in Jiangsu, up 20.2 percent year-on-year. In Fujian, 40 enterprises each received more than 100 million yuan ($14.34 million) in accumulated funds, totaling 17.9 billion yuan in the first half, up 36.9 percent from a year earlier. A total of 203 foreign firms from 30 countries and regions settled down in Hainan, including Rio Tinto, Charoen Pokphand and other top 500 firms from around the world.

Chen Bo, director of the Optical Valley Institute for Free Trade, said China has been the country with the most stable operations in the world in terms of its economic society due to excellent control of the COVID-19 epidemic, and it is the second-largest market which has preferably recovered from the pandemic. A recent survey by the Commerce Ministry showed 99.1 percent of foreign-invested firms said they will continue to invest and do business in China.

Pang Chaoran, associate researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said that the growth of China's actual use of foreign investment, which bucks the trends, benefited from the epidemic control in China, leading to a trend of increasingly good prospects in work resumption. On the other hand, growth profited from the rapid recovery of the country's economy, which makes foreign-invested enterprises put more emphasis on the Chinese market.