Foreign firms benefit from China’s progress

According to the 2017 China Business Environment Member Survey, released by the US-China Business Council recently, 95 percent of the responding foreign companies said they enjoyed continuous profits in China, with one-third of the respondents indicating their business profits in China are higher than in other markets.

With the rise of the Chinese manufacturing sector, some people are concerned that the spillover effect that might arise from structural problems such as excess capacity will have a negative impact on other countries’ industries. Others are worried that the Made in China 2025 plan may only benefit the local enterprises and create obstacles to foreign companies, thus resulting in unfair competition. These concerns are unnecessary.

As General Secretary Xi Jinping stated in the report to the 19th CPC National Congress: “China will not close its open door to the world; instead, China will become more and more open.” China’s manufacturing industry has been and always will be upholding the fundamental principle of mutual benefit and open cooperation. We will also further open up the manufacturing industry, improve policy transparency and stability, optimize government services and efficiency, and continue to improve the business environment.

Moving from where we are, we will implement the commitments to further open up such sectors as automobiles, shipbuilding and aircraft manufacturing, by easing restrictions over the proportion of foreign equity as early as possible, especially in the auto sector. We will also enhance alignment with international economic and trade rules, and provide foreign investors with more and better The author is minister of Industry and Information Technology.