Executives hail city's efforts in opening-up, remain bullish on future prospects

Senior executives of global enterprises are bullish on investing in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, saying the city's innovation capacity and openness will further fuel growth of their businesses amid global economic uncertainty.

At the 2020 Shenzhen Global Investment Promotion Conference held on Tuesday, over 240 projects were signed, with total investment hitting 780 billion yuan ($119 billion).

The projects cover a wide range of fields including new-generation information technology, advanced manufacturing, biomedicine, new materials and digital economy.

The launch of the event is part of Shenzhen's broader efforts to push forward high-quality and sustainable development with the aim of building itself into a pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Shenzhen's Party Secretary Wang Weizhong said the city will offer 15 square kilometers of industrial space this year for global enterprises to set up business in the city.

"Any high-quality project that meets Shenzhen's industrial development strategy and the city's high-quality and sustainable development demand will be able to secure land in the city," Wang said.

A pioneer of China's reform and opening-up, Shenzhen has been a popular destination for foreign investment. According to the city's commerce bureau, Shenzhen's actual use of overseas capital amounted to $7 billion in the first 10 months of the year, growing 7.58 percent year-on-year, with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and Singapore being the main sources.

The city is accelerating legislation on the promotion of overseas investment to create a more favorable business environment and better protect the legal rights and interests of overseas investors.

"Shenzhen has developed sound business environment in the past 40 years of its development. The city's culture of openness, innovation and inclusiveness is very conducive to the development of enterprises. We also place high hopes on Shenzhen's strong innovation capacity and vitality," said Zhao Yongzhan, senior vice-president of ABB (China) Ltd.

"Against the backdrop of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development, we believe Shenzhen's economy will continue to grow robustly. We hope to take full advantage of all these to build a more powerful research and development center there. Also, we hope Shenzhen's innovative development could provide a solution to other places in the world," Zhao said.

Andreas Schneck, general manager of Siemens Shenzhen Magnetic Resonance Ltd, said he is most impressed by the innovation power of Shenzhen and the Greater Bay Area.

"This is what we find to be the most important and the most interesting in Shenzhen for companies like us. We want to stay in Shenzhen and keep investing because we believe that its business environment is extremely friendly to companies," Schneck said.

Guo Yi, managing director and partner of Boston Consulting Group, said Shenzhen's favorable business environment is demonstrated in the openness of its government.

"The ranking of Shenzhen's openness to foreign investment has advanced after the coronavirus outbreak, based on our study, with the level on a par with global leaders," Guo said.

As Shenzhen's special economic zone, China's first, celebrated its 40th anniversary in October, a series of pilot measures were launched by the central authorities to further promote its growth.

"With a big package of preferential policies given to Shenzhen, we are more confident in developing in the city," Guo said.

"We hope Shenzhen can make new breakthroughs in the commercialization of technological achievements and in innovation to create more world-leading enterprises like Huawei and Mindray."

He added that since the official opening of the Digital BCG Immersion Center and the consultancy's Shenzhen office late last year, a large number of its customers have visited the sites. "This shows that many Fortune Global 500 companies have a very positive outlook on Shenzhen's development."

The global conference attracted about 300 enterprises and institutions from across the world. Besides the main venue in Shenzhen, parallel sessions were held in eight cities across five continents, including New York, London, Tokyo and Sydney.