Xinhua Headlines: How multinationals view Chinese market

* Participants at Qingdao Multinationals Summit have expressed strong confidence in the Chinese market, praising China's continued efforts to promote high-level opening-up.

* Despite a complex and volatile international environment, China's expanding market scale and increasingly optimized business environment have still attracted many multinational companies to invest.

* The development of China's AI industry and low-altitude economy has provided a broad stage for multinational companies to explore new business models. Investing in China is investing in the future.

JINAN, June 20 (Xinhua) -- The sixth Qingdao Multinationals Summit was held in the coastal city of Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, from Wednesday to Friday, attracting 465 multinationals, including many Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders.

Themed "Multinationals and China: Connecting the World for Win-Win Cooperation," the three-day summit invited over 470 senior executives of multinational companies from 43 countries and regions, covering cutting-edge fields such as high-end equipment, new energy, new materials, artificial intelligence (AI) and modern finance.

In the face of a complex and volatile international environment, how do the executives of multinationals view the Chinese market?

EXPANDING INVESTMENT AMID SOUND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

During the summit, many heads of multinational enterprises shared their experiences of investing in China and expressed praise and affirmation for China.

"The development of foreign businesses in China is largely attributed to the guarantee of policies. China's commitment to reform and opening up is of great significance to promoting the optimization of the business environment and industrial upgrading," said Alex Lin, general manager of AstraZeneca China.

"In terms of the research and development and production of the pharmaceutical and biological industry, the strong support of the Chinese government has promoted the overall industrial upgrading," Lin added.

The company is accelerating its expansion in China. In March, AstraZeneca signed a landmark agreement to invest 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in Beijing over the next five years.

Under the agreement, it will establish a global strategic R&D center in Beijing, its sixth worldwide and second in China. The new center, equipped with an advanced AI and data science laboratory, will accelerate early-stage drug research and clinical development.

This is an important testament to the company's firm investment in China and its determination to move forward together with the Healthy China 2030 initiative, Lin said.

Despite a complex and volatile international environment, China's expanding market scale and increasingly optimized business environment have still attracted many multinational companies to invest, which promotes the continuous growth of the number of foreign-funded enterprises in China, the diversification of foreign-funded sources and the continuous optimization of foreign investment structure.

According to China's Ministry of Commerce, 59,000 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in China last year, reflecting an increase of 9.9 percent year on year, and the country's actual utilized foreign capital reached 116.2 billion U.S. dollars. As of the end of 2024, foreign investors had invested and established more than 1.23 million enterprises, with a cumulative actual utilization of foreign capital of 20.6 trillion yuan (about 2.87 trillion U.S. dollars).

Bekaert, a Belgium-based enterprise in steel wire transformation and coating technologies, began to invest in China in the 1990s and has 17 operating sites in seven cities including Qingdao.

Over the past three decades, the company has continuously increased investment in China and has cumulatively invested 1.5 billion euros (about 1.72 billion U.S. dollars) so far, said Kurt Van Rysselberge, head of Bekaert China, adding that the company will continue to invest in China and increase cooperation with Chinese partners.

INVESTING IN CHINA IS INVESTING IN THE FUTURE

During the summit, "low-altitude economy", "artificial intelligence" and "green and low-carbon" were hot topics of discussion.

Some multinationals said that they are seizing the opportunity presented by China's promotion of new quality productive forces, leveraging China's innovation ecosystem advantages to accelerate their layout in cutting-edge industries such as future manufacturing, future health and future energy.

Rui Coelho, CEO of Air Liquide China, said that the company will continue to make efforts in carbon capture, utilization, and storage and hydrogen energy utilization to assist in the green and low-carbon transformation of China's steel, metal smelting, chemical and other fields.

According to a report on multinationals in China released during the summit, multinational companies have continued to increase their investment in China's high-tech manufacturing industry in 2025.

In the first quarter, the actual utilization of foreign capital in the biopharmaceutical manufacturing industry, the aerospace and equipment manufacturing industry, and the medical instrument and equipment manufacturing industry increased by 63.8 percent, 42.5 percent, and 12.4 percent respectively, the report said.

The layout of future cutting-edge industries by multinationals in China not only brings capital and technology, but also promotes China's industrial leap through industrial chain reshaping, international resource coordination and localized innovation, according to the report.

In the context of China's "dual carbon" goal of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and attaining carbon neutrality by 2060, the company has great potential, and in the process of updating product categories, the company focuses on R&D and manufacturing products with low weight and low energy consumption, said Rysselberge.

This is in line with China's green and low-carbon development concept and also brings more development opportunities to the company, he added.

The development of China's AI industry and low-altitude economy has also provided a broad stage for multinational companies to explore new business models.

Last year, the scale of China's AI industry exceeded 700 billion yuan and has maintained a growth rate of over 20 percent for consecutive years, cultivating new application scenarios in the fields of intelligent manufacturing, smart cities, smart medical care and smart agriculture.

In 2025, the market size of China's low-altitude economy is expected to reach 1.5 trillion yuan, and the development of business formats such as low-altitude logistics, air tours, medical rescue and agricultural testing will accelerate.

By creating a fair, competitive environment, expanding domestic demand and accelerating industrial upgrading, China has become a fertile ground for investment for multinationals, and investing in China is investing in the future, said James Zhou, chief commercial officer and head of Asia Region, Louis Dreyfus Company.

(Reporting by Sun Wenji, Zhang Wuyue, Shao Kun, Wang Kai; video reporters: Wu Feizuo, Wang Huan; video editors: Wu You, Hui Peipei)■