After the Spring Festival holidays, SAKAI SIO International Guangzhou Co., Ltd.(short for SIO hereinafter) with a registered capital of 21 billion yuan officially completed the registration procedures at Huangpu Customs. The project, mainly engaged in the production of the 10.5G panels, glass substrates and related products, will have total investment up to 61 billion yuan.

The efficient services of the local government won high praise of the investor. Prior to the official registration at the customs, Huangpu Customs and the local government had made several talks with Foxconn, learned of the project application progress and the import plan on relevant equipment and raw material, and actively presented the policy directives, said He Penglin, customs affair manager of Foxconn, SIO’s parent company.

In fact, to Guangzhou, a city renowned for its commerce, Foxconn’s investment is just an epitome of a series of major projects over the past two years. In 2016, Guangzhou had 1,757 new foreign-funded enterprises, up 23% year on year, and utilized foreign investment of 5.7 billion USD, up 5.3% year on year.

“In comparison with that of five years ago, Guangzhou’s actual utilization of foreign investment in 2016 increased 33%, and the number of newly-established enterprises showed a steady growth despite of the severe domestic and foreign economic situation,” said Chen Jie, director-general of Guangzhou Municipal Commercial Commission.

By the end of 2016, a total of 288 Fortune 500 corporations have invested in Guangzhou, Cisco Systems(China), Inc. invested 20 billion yuan in Cisco(Guangzhou) Smart City project which will be the biggest Internet of Things R&D platform and smart manufacturing operation platform except those in the US.

“The project will be an enormous opportunity for us and our partners to realize our dreams and create an innovative model for the world,” said Ciscos Global CEO Chuck Robbins.

Over the past 2,000 years, Guangzhou has been an important port of China and known as a “millennial commercial capital”. Now the city has been more and more favored by global investors and evolving into a modern commercial capital.

No doubt, one of the most direct advantages of Guangzhou’s investment and business environment is its world first-class infrastructures.

China’s Millennial Commercial Capital Meets New Opportunities for Opening-up and Development

In addition, Guangzhou boasts a complete industrial chain. It has ten major industries, namely, automobile manufacturing, fine chemical, major equipment, commercial conference and exhibitions, financial insurargin-bottom: 1.0gd; mso-para-margin-left: 0cm">In addition, Guangzhou boasts a complance, modern logistics, new-generation IT, bio-medicine, new material, new energy, energy-saving and environmental protection. Guangzhou also takes the lead in industrial manufacturing and R&D.

Guangzhou also has complete innovation and startup support systems. It is home to 2/3 of the total universities, 97% of state key disciplines and all the state key laboratories of the province. The number of the city’s total talent with education of senior professional colleges and above is about 2.88 million, and the number of the city’s total professional talent is about 1.41million.

Comparing with hardware, people attach more attention to the investment promotion effect from the “software environment improvement” due to system reform and government service improvement. In terms of system reform, Nansha Free Trade Zone(FTZ) is attached with greatest importance. A series innovation measures including foreign investment negative list management, cross-border RMB business innovation, financial exchange innovation, aviation and logistics innovation, Guangzhou-Hong Kong-Macao in-depth economic cooperation, trade facilitation and optimization of governmental services have been implemented, making Nansha FTZ a new engine for economic growth, transformation and upgrading. Nansha FTZ will be forged into a high-level opening-up portal hub.

Behind the system innovation in the FTZ, the whole Guangzhou is actively devoting into a new-round construction of marketization, legal governance, and internationalized business environment. During the system reform-focused business environment construction, measures on industrial and commercial registration, tax and fee reduction and exemption, and customs clearance facilitation have been practically carried out.

According to market insiders, this also shows China still keeps an open-up and salutatory posture to foreign investment. In its notice recently distributed, the State Council allows the local government to “formulate and issue investment promotion policies within the legal jurisdiction to support projects with great contribution to employment, economic development and technical innovation, and reduce enterprise investment and operation cost.”

“Guangzhou will grasp the golden period, window period and opportunity period for its development, to build a hub-type network city, establish a new, high-level, open-up economic system, forge an investment environment with greater international competitiveness from the aspects of industrial vitality, infrastructures, enterprise operation cost, talent and innovation, and promote the accelerated clustering of global capital, technology, talent and information in the city,” said Chen Jie.

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou, March 3, 2017