On August 24, the inaugural session of “Multinational Corporations Exploring Beijing” was held in Huairou District, with more than 140 entrepreneurs from multinational corporations based in Beijing in attendance. Yin Li, Secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, delivered remarks, and Yin Yong, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and Mayor of Beijing, presided over the session.
In his remarks, Yin Li said that China is advancing the implementation of the 15th Five-Year Plan, continuously expanding high-standard opening up and improving services for foreign investment, with a view to creating more opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation through its own development. As China’s capital, Beijing is also a preferred destination for multinational corporations seeking to invest and expand their presence in China. The city is now home to 42 Fortune Global 500 companies. Over the past five years, an average of 2,000 foreign-invested enterprises have been newly established each year, bringing the total number to 35,000. Beijing has abundant resources in education, science and technology, and talent, with 92 universities and more than 1,000 research institutes in the city. It ranks among the world’s leading cities in terms of entries on the Highly Cited Researchers list, and its R&D intensity has remained above 6%. In 2025, Beijing’s Gross Regional Product (GRP) stood at 5.2 trillion yuan, while both its per capita GRP and labor productivity measured by output per worker ranked first nationwide. Beijing has achieved sound and stable development in its social programs, and has been improving its business environment and services for foreign nationals, providing favorable conditions for multinational corporations to establish and expand their presence in the city.
Yin Li said that Beijing is working to take the lead in basically realizing socialist modernization and to make solid progress in promoting high-quality development. He said that multinational corporations could focus on cutting-edge areas of scientific and technological innovation, deepen innovation cooperation with universities, research institutions, and technology companies in Beijing, accelerate technological breakthroughs and the commercialization of research results, and jointly open up new areas for growth. He encouraged them to deepen industrial cooperation, strengthen presence in such fields as artificial intelligence, biomedicine, energy conservation, and environmental protection, expand businesses in areas including tech finance and green finance, and promote integrated development across the cultural, commercial, tourism, sports, and exhibition sectors, thereby collectively fostering new drivers of development. He also expressed hope that multinationals could expand exchanges and interactions in cross-border e-commerce and international trade, make good use of platforms such as the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), deepen economic and trade cooperation, and bring more quality products and services to the vast Chinese and Beijing markets. By leveraging the development of the National Integrated Demonstration Zone for Greater Openness in the Services Sector and the China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone, multinational corporations are expected to promote people-to-people exchanges and international cooperation and create new opportunities for development together. Beijing will continue to foster a world-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and accessible, and provide full support for multinational corporations in investing and operating in Beijing and achieving greater success.
Huang Xiaojun, Global Senior Vice President of Veolia Group, a leading French multinational corporation, delivered remarks as a representative of the participating corporations and expressed his appreciation to the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and the Beijing Municipal Government for organizing the event. He said that Veolia has been operating in Beijing for more than 30 years, during which it has witnessed the continuous improvement of the city’s business environment, increasingly comprehensive services for headquarters enterprises, and more effective communication between the government and businesses. Going forward, Veolia will further leverage its strengths and align with Beijing’s development needs to deepen practical cooperation in such areas as water resource recycling, the control and treatment of new pollutants, and the development of zero-carbon industrial parks, and will continue to put down roots in Beijing, deepen its engagement, and serve the city.
At the event, measures taken by Beijing Municipality and Huairou District to support multinational corporations were presented. Representatives of multinational corporations also visited the Huairou Science City Innovation Hall, the High Energy Photon Source (HEPS), and Yanbai Villa.
Municipal leaders Zhao Lei, Sima Hong, Wen Xian, and Tang Wenhong, as well as Zeng Jin, Secretary General of the Beijing Municipal Government, attended the event.
