China Economic Review July 13--China Economic Net

Opinion

China remains a favorable destination for global capital investment

The latest data from the Ministry of Commerce showed that the number of existing foreign-invested enterprises in China has exceeded 530,000. In the first four months of this year, investment in high-tech industries from foreign sources surged by 20.3 percent year-on-year, and more than 3,000 foreign enterprises made additional investments in China. This not only confirms that China remains an irreplaceable hot destination for global capital, but also marks a new stage in which China's attraction and utilization of foreign capital is steadily moving toward a more optimized structure and higher quality.

Continued efforts will be made to build the "Invest in China" brand and deepen international cooperation in industrial and supply chains. Relying on high-level opening-up platforms such as national-level new areas and pilot free trade zones, we will further expand the breadth and depth of international industrial cooperation, and encourage multinational enterprises to deeply embed themselves in the process of upgrading China's industrial chains. Efforts will also be made to promote deeper collaborative innovation between domestic and foreign enterprises in advanced manufacturing, green and low-carbon sectors, and other new quality productive forces, transforming one-way technology transfer into two-way integrated co-creation, and converting the vitality of China's market into strong momentum for enhancing the global competitiveness of multinational capital.

Effective measures are being taken to remove bottlenecks and boost foreign capital's long-term commitment to China. We will further optimize the negative list for foreign investment, and resolutely break down implicit barriers and protectionism in various localities and fields. We will continue to implement the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries for Foreign Investment, and guide foreign capital to invest more in the real economy and key technology sectors. We will comprehensively expand the coverage and accessibility of tax incentives, reinvestment deferred tax policies, and other measures, actively promote foreign-invested enterprises to convert profits into reinvestment in China, and facilitate the transformation of multinational capital from "short-term profit-seeking" to "long-term rooting."

The service and support system for foreign investment will be improved, alongside efforts to reinforce a transparent, stable, and predictable institutional environment. Relying on public service platforms at all levels, we will institutionalize roundtable meetings for foreign-invested enterprises, and solidly carry out special visit activities to bring services to the doorsteps of foreign enterprises. Through targeted face-to-face problem-solving, we will effectively translate favorable policies into a sense of gain for enterprises. Focusing on key areas such as government procurement, bidding, and standard-setting, we will fully implement national treatment for foreign-invested enterprises, and improve the fair competition review mechanism, so that foreign enterprises have the confidence to invest and grow stronger in China under the law-based environment and international-aligned rules.

Policy

1. According to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), by 2030, China will have preliminarily established the world’s largest circular economy system, with the annual comprehensive utilization of bulk solid waste raised to approximately 4.5 billion tonnes and the output value of the resource recycling industry reaching RMB 8 trillion.

2. According to NDRC, the 200-billion-yuan funds for large-scale equipment renewal and consumer goods trade-in program for the entire year have all been allocated, supporting around 11,000 projects across 22 sectors.

3. According to NDRC, the third batch of projects implementing major national strategies and building security capacity in key areas for 2026 has recently been issued, with a total of RMB 193.5 billion arranged through ultra-long-term special government bonds. With this, the list of the construction projects for this year has now been fully issued.

Data

1. As of June 30, cross-border freight transported via the China-Laos Railway has exceeded 20 million tonnes since the line opened in December 2021, with the total value of imports and exports reaching RMB 90.28 billion, further underscoring its role as a corridor linking China with Southeast Asia.

2. China's railway freight maintained steady growth in the first half of 2026, supporting the dual circulation of domestic and international trade. According to China State Railway Group Co., Ltd, the national railway network transported a total of 2.015 billion tonnes of cargo in the January-June period, marking a year-on-year increase of 1.8 percent. Among them, China-Europe freight trains operated 11,178 trips, up 20 percent from a year earlier.

3. China's exports of knowledge-intensive services jumped 12.2 percent to RMB 667.75 billion during the January-May period, with charges for the use of intellectual property and personal cultural and entertainment services surging 64.9 percent and 50.1 percent, respectively, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce.

4. China's express delivery volume had surpassed 100 billion parcels as of the end of June this year, data from the State Post Bureau showed on July 4. The milestone came nine days earlier than in 2025, the bureau said, noting that it signaled a steady upturn in both the express delivery sector and the consumer market.

5. China's exports of separately classified robots reached 10.377 million units in the first five months of 2026, generating RMB 19.99 billion in revenue and reaching more than 150 countries and regions across the globe, according to customs data.

6. Hainan Free Trade Port's duty-free sales surged in the first six months. Offshore duty-free purchases from January through June reached RMB 19.92 billion, a 18.8-percent-increase year on year. The number of shoppers grew 12.6 percent year on year to 2.79 million, while the volume of items sold rose 7.3 percent year on year to 15.966 million units, according to Haikou Customs.

7. Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that in the first five months of this year, the value-added output of electronic information manufacturing enterprises above the designated size grew by 14.6 percent year on year, outpacing the overall industrial sector and the high-tech manufacturing sector by 9.2 and 1.5 percentage points, respectively.

8. The scale of China's core AI industry is estimated to have surpassed RMB 1.2 trillion in 2025. Evolving technologies such as large language models, intelligent agents, and AI chips are powering the booming robot industry, and China's humanoid robot output is expected to exceed 100,000 units this year.

9. China's warehousing index gained 0.6 percentage points compared with the May figure, reaching 50.2 percent in June, data from the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing revealed. Warehousing demand improved significantly as major infrastructure projects commenced intensively across the country and manufacturing supply and demand recovered in tandem, pushing the index back into expansion territory.

10. In the first five months of this year, revenue of China's robot enterprises above the designated size exceeded RMB 90 billion, up 26.9 percent year on year. China has remained the world's largest industrial robot market for 13 consecutive years, with domestic-brand industrial robots now accounting for over 50 percent of the domestic market.

(Source: Economic Daily)