Economic Watch: Foreign businesses eye great potential in Chinese market

Foreign-invested companies are remaining bullish on the Chinese market with the country's effective curb of COVID-19, emerging economic drivers and greater opening-up.

Foreign direct investment into the Chinese mainland, in actual use, expanded 31.5 percent year on year to 176.76 billion yuan (27.17 billion U.S. dollars) in the first two months of the year, the latest data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

Many foreign-invested companies are eyeing great potential in the Chinese market's consumption growth.

Amorepacific Corporation, a leading beauty and cosmetics conglomerate in the Republic of Korea has already signed up for the 4th China International Import Expo (CIIE) this year, a major fair for global companies to expand their businesses in China.

At last year's CIIE, Amorepacific doubled its exhibition area from the previous year to 500 square meters.

As an important leading market in beauty trends, China boasts huge potential in domestic demand, and the CIIE has served to open up the space for consumption, said Charles Kao, president of Amorepacific China.

Currently, Amorepacific offers a wide range of products and services from skincare to color cosmetics at more than 5,200 stores in over 370 Chinese cities.

Jaeho Yeon, senior vice president of Shanghai-based Amorepacific China R&D Center, leads a team of 60 people that focus on studying Chinese consumers' demands, cosmetics habits and feedback on products to flexibly cater to the local needs.

"In the next five years, we'll continue to increase our investment in China and double the scale of the R&D team," said Jaeho Yeon, adding that Shanghai has an active consumer market with great talent reserves.

For Carrier Global Corporation, a global provider of high-tech HVAC and refrigeration solutions, China's emerging economic drivers, such as the digital economy, bring new opportunities.

Thanks to China's early resumption of work amid stringent COVID-19 control and prevention, the company maintained its performance in the Chinese commercial air-conditioner market last year compared with 2019.

"We are eying new opportunities as more large-scale data centers are being built in China, which require precise and stable temperature and humidity control," said Robert Chiang, VP, Engineering, Carrier Global Technology & Components, and Shanghai R&D Center.

The systematic solutions Carrier designs for the data centers can greatly reduce energy consumption, Chiang noted.

"China is a market worth long-term investment, and we will continue to ramp up our investment in the country," Chiang said, adding that as a U.S.-based company, Carrier has seen the benefits of China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation over the many years doing business in China.

The company will continue to invest in commercial air conditioning, increase investment in cold chain technology and expand R&D investment in digital technology, Chiang added.

On Wednesday, Standard Chartered Bank (China) Ltd. became the first foreign-invested bank to cooperate in a pilot cash-pooling service for multinational companies that integrates domestic and foreign currency management to facilitate the use of cross-border capital.

"The implementation of the pilot significantly enhances the flexibility and convenience of cross-border cash flows for multinational groups," said Ye Jiwei, head of transaction banking at Standard Chartered China. "It is yet another milestone for China in steadily promoting the opening of capital markets to facilitate trade and investment."

Standard Chartered Bank has continued to increase its investment with China's economic growth. The bank has announced that it will invest 40 million U.S. dollars to set up a Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center.

Jerry Zhang, executive vice-chairman and CEO of Standard Chartered Bank (China) Ltd., said China's determination to open up its market to the world and its continued actions have caught the world's attention.

The new development paradigm of "dual circulation" in which domestic and overseas markets reinforce each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay, has brought a wide range of opportunities for international banks like Standard Chartered, Zhang noted.