On September 29, a special press conference was held on trade and investment facilitation for the development of the "two zones" in Beijing. Tang Yonghong, Member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director-General of Beijing Investment Promotion Service Center, said that the "two zones" initiative has achieved remarkable results in helping Beijing attract investment over the past two years. Up to now, Beijing has attracted over 7,000 projects, with an estimated investment amount exceeding CNY 1.95 trillion. The districts where the seven free trade zones are located have attracted more than 4,300 projects, or over 60% of the total.
In the past two years of building Beijing's "two zones", major projects have played a significant role in attracting investment. More than 130 large domestic-funded projects with investment exceeding CNY 1 billion, which accounts for over 70% of the total amount of domestic investment, have been launched; more than 100 large foreign-funded projects with investment exceeding USD 50 million, which accounts for nearly 90% of the total amount of foreign capital, have been launched. At the same time, there have been more pioneering and landmark projects playing an exemplary role. Over the past two years, Beijing has actively carried out the pilot program of aligning domestic rules with rules of high-standard international free trade agreements. A number of pioneering and landmark projects with major influence have landed in Beijing, such as Ueda Yagi Money Broking (China) Co. Ltd., China's first fully foreign-owned money broker, and PayPal, China's first third-party payment platform with 100% foreign ownership.
Beijing has taken multiple measures to strengthen logistics services so as to enhance the quality and efficiency of investment attraction. Last year, the People's Government of Beijing Municipality approved and published Several Decisions on Further Promoting Investment for High-quality Economic Development, which put forward an innovative model for investment attraction and nine investment-attracting measures including enhancing the role of platforms and industrial parks in attracting investment, providing guidance for Beijing's investment attraction.
Over the past two years, Beijing has carried out more than 200 online and offline investment promotion activities at both municipal and district levels, through which Beijing's "two zones" policies and achievements have been promoted, attracting the attention as well as investment from an increasing number of multinational companies and companies in the "Global 500". In particular, the 2022 Beijing "Two Zones" International Cooperation and Invest Beijing Summit was held during the just-concluded China International Fair for Trade in Services, and 58 projects worth over 102.4 billion yuan were signed in the theme event for the second anniversary of the establishment of the "two zones". "Beijing Investment Reception" has been established, where 31 livestreaming activities were held with nearly 3 million views. The global investment attraction network has taken shape, and Beijing has strengthened its ability to attract international investment. The Municipal Investment Promotion Service Center selected eight institutions, namely Beijing Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment, Bank of China Beijing Branch, MUFG Bank, China-Britain Business Council, Cushman & Wakefield, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sino-International Entrepreneurs Federation, and World Business Council for Sustainable Development—as the first group of Global Partners of Invest Beijing.
In addition, Beijing has given full play to the role of the service mechanisms including the "service packages" and "steward services" and the enterprise hotline 12345 to meet the demands of enterprises. Since the beginning of this year, the 12345 hotline has handled 41,000 calls from enterprises, among which more than 300 involved complicated cases, with a completion rate of over 98%.
Tang Yonghong said that Beijing Investment Promotion Service Center will continue to improve the investment promotion system, strive to establish a resource-sharing mechanism for investment attraction, double efforts to attract more projects, and introduce and launch a number of leading projects, so as to promote the development of the "two zones" to high standards.
(Reporter: Ma Jing)
