In the first half of this year, Chongqing's foreign investment in actual use amounted to USD 4.01 billion, and 109 new foreign-invested enterprises settled in the city, up 22.47% year on year, according to Chongqing Municipal Commission of Commerce on August 10.
Chongqing Jiangbeizui Central Business District
Since the beginning of this year, to cope with the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and stabilize foreign investment, Chongqing has rolled out a series of relevant policies, including the Measures for Further Utilizing Foreign Investment. By doing so, Chongqing aims to strengthen the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of foreign enterprises and enhance their confidence to seek development in Chongqing.
"Before the policy was introduced, relevant authorities had asked us many times for advice. The new policy is also in line with our needs, which is encouraging and praiseworthy," said Hu Weijin, HR Manager of Continental Automotive R&D (Chongqing) Co., Ltd. These policies made them feel Chongqing's attitude and sincerity towards foreign investment introduction, and their company is thus willing to continue to cooperate with the city.
In addition, the city also strives to improve the corresponding service system for foreign investors. For example, it has proposed to build a team of "service stewards" to take charge of foreign investment administration, so as to achieve full coverage of services for foreign-invested enterprises in the city. Since the establishment of the relevant mechanism, Chongqing has coordinated and solved more than 400 difficulties faced by foreign enterprises in a timely manner, thus effectively promoting the resumption of work and production of these enterprises.
In the first half of this year, Chongqing held several policy briefings to help foreign-funded enterprises resume work and production and attract investment, held online investment promotion meetings with enterprises in Europe, Hong Kong, the United States, Japan, etc., and conducted one-to-one negotiations with Global 500 enterprises via video links. In this period, the number of foreign investment projects introduced online by Chongqing increased by 25.8%, and the amount of contractual foreign investment by 41.5%.