During his meeting with Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong on Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple is keen to seize the opportunities presented by China’s opening-up and will continue to increase investment in China.
This is Cook’s second trip to the Chinese mainland this year. In his visit to Shanghai in March, Cook reiterated the company’s long-term commitment to the Chinese market, saying “There’s no supply chain in the world that’s more critical to us than China”.
Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams also visited its production bases and automated equipment suppliers in the cities of Suzhou and Changsha on Tuesday and Wednesday. That Cook and Williams were in China at the same time shows the importance the US tech giant attaches to the Chinese market.
China’s intensified efforts to promote higher-level opening-up and optimize the domestic business environment are making it a preferred investment destination and an important research and development base for multinational enterprises. This refutes the claim that foreign investors are withdrawing from the Chinese market.
Statistics show that the willingness of foreign capital to hold assets in renminbi has increased further, with total foreign holdings of domestic renminbi bonds hitting an all-time high of $640 billion. Also, in the first eight months of this year, nearly 37,000 new foreign-funded enterprises were established in China, up 11.5 percent year-on-year, with the actual use of foreign investment exceeding 580 billion yuan ($81.43 billion).
Behind foreign investors’ rising enthusiasm in the Chinese market are China’s improving economic conditions and continuous introduction of favorable policies.
The steady improvements in China’s economic fundamentals have provided a sound macro environment for foreign investment. At the same time, since September, China has accelerated the introduction of a package of incremental policies, which has greatly boosted market confidence and stimulated market vitality. China’s intensified efforts in the past years to open its financial market to the outside world — such as the launch of the Shanghai Stock Connect and Shenzhen Stock Connect and other institutional arrangements to create diversified investment channels for foreign investment — and its continuous efforts to increase access to foreign investment, expand the list of industries and projects for foreign investment, and implement tax support policies for foreign enterprises have created a broader market space and a better business environment for foreign enterprises.
The introduction of a series of policy measures to promote higher-level opening-up is translating into China’s stronger attractiveness to foreign investors, making its market a magnet to many multinationals like Apple.