Foreign firms confident in China's industrial chains

BEIJING -- China's supply chains featuring resilience and integrity have attracted more foreign-invested companies to up their investment in the Chinese market amid an improved business environment.

Official data showed that 24,000 new foreign firms established themselves in China in the first half of the year, marking a 35.7 percent rise year-on-year. During the period, foreign direct investment from developed countries including Britain and Germany saw rapid expansion, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

As a manufacturing powerhouse, China boasts all the industrial categories listed in the United Nations industrial classification. With a vast market of 1.4 billion population, the motivation for foreign firms to invest in the country becomes even stronger.

German sheet metal parts producer HA-BE Mechanical Components (Taicang) Co Ltd sustained double-digit growth in the Chinese market for the past five or six years. Karl Froehlich, on the board of directors of the company, attributed the fast expansion pace to the "highly competitive" industrial chain pertaining to the industry sector in China.

"The company wouldn't have grown so much without suppliers who can deliver with a faster speed and better quality, or customers who want to buy the products," Froehlich said.

He noted there has been a notable change toward partnership in the whole market that the communication and problem-solving capacity of the players on the industrial chain has boosted in the past 10 years.

The tailwinds from the integrity and unity of the industrial chain will drive the business to grow further in the Chinese market. "I hope I could work for the company for the next 10 years and have the Chinese branch as big as our headquarters in Germany when I go to retirement," he said.

Australian company BioGenesis Group, majoring in health, superfood products, and agricultural technologies related to natural algae, is looking forward to expanding its research and development (R&D) capacity, one of the core competitiveness of the company, by investing in the Chinese market.

Casting a vote of confidence in the vast potential of China, Zhang Wenbin, CFO of the group, said the company will take root in the Chinese market by launching an R&D center through an industry-academia-research cooperation mechanism.

"The Chinese market can provide up-to-date healthcare philosophy and abundant clinical data for us to develop healthcare products that are more suitable for Asian people," Zhang said.

Amid the country's improved business environment and shortened negative list for foreign investment access, foreign firms have been upping their investment ante in the Chinese market.

Foreign investments from France, Britain, Japan, and Germany into the Chinese mainland surged 173.3 percent, 135.3 percent, 53 percent, and 14.2 percent, respectively, in the first six months of this year, showed the MOC data.