European investment company sees great opportunities in China's opening-up push

China's recent opening-up measures, especially those in the financial sector, have created tremendous opportunities for multinationals to tap into, said Eddie Chen, head of China & Asia at Eurazeo, an investment company headquartered in France.

"We see China not much different from our home market now as the country continuously eases market access and improves the business environment," Chen told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA).

He said back in 2013, the company spent up to nine months opening a representative office in China, which is almost unimaginable today.

"One of the most exciting parts of doing business in China is that things are changing fast, and changes bring opportunities," he said, noting that the changes happening in China are positive ones.

Aside from national-level policies, local governments at all levels in China demonstrate a strong willingness to attract foreign investment by means of offering incentives and other forms of support, said Chen.

He visited the southernmost island province of Hainan, where the BFA is hosted, eight times in nine months to take advantage of preferential local policies and look for opportunities for Eurazeo's portfolio companies.

Last year, China released a master plan for building Hainan into a globally influential and high-level free trade port by the middle of the century.

This month, the country unveiled more policies to further liberalize and facilitate trade in the Hainan free trade port, allowing certain regions to relax their control of import and export qualifications for and quantities of commodities such as crude oil, refined oil and sugar, and cancel their licensing systems for imports such as mechanical and electrical products.

Looking ahead, Chen said the "dual circulation" development paradigm, a guiding thought in a blueprint for China's development over the next five to 15 years, will certainly attract more foreign companies to expand their presence in the world's second-largest economy by stimulating the domestic market.