Jiangsu accelerates construction of two-way open hub

East China's Jiangsu province has stepped up its efforts for the construction of a two-way open hub with global convergence power. Let's take a close look.

In order to enhance the allocation of value-added power and radiation belt power towards global resource elements, Jiangsu has formulated the 2024 Annual Promotion Plan for Building a Bidirectional Open Hub with World Aggregation Power.

"In 2023, our new energy batteries are exported to Europe, North America, and India,with export orders increasing by 68% year-on-year", said Wang Zhikun, secretary of the Party Committee and senior vice president of Honeycomb Energy Technology Co., Ltd.

"Last year, we arranged for 1926 Jiangsu enterprises to participate in over 190 international exhibitions in 38 countries and regions overseas. These well-known international exhibitions have helped Jiangsu enterprises obtain foreign orders and stabilize the market", said Wei Xiujun, chairman and general manager of Jiangsu International Convention and Exhibition Co., Ltd.

Rehau Polymers (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Germany-based Rehau Group in China, has expanded its production lines from 2 to 36 to produce an annual operating revenue of nearly 900 million yuan. The company admitted that behind their increased investment with peace of mind, they largely valued Taicang's dedication and attention to foreign companies.

"Taicang has provided us with comprehensive support. The Taicang Municipal Government visits our headquarters in Germany every year to learn about our company's future development plans in China. In principle, this new project will take a year and a half. In the end, the project only took eight months from planning to implementation", said Wu Genwei, a member of the Northeast Asia Management Committee of Rehau Polymer (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.

Behind the high efficiency lies Taicang's work philosophy of treating foreign companies as its own and treating their affairs as its own responsibility.

Taicang has allocated for each enterprise government and enterprise affairs officers who are familiar with policies so as to provide efficient nanny-style services such as investment, production, and award and subsidy applications.

Last year, Taicang innovatively utilized a digital platform network to follow up on the development of local enterprises, coordinating multiple departments to provide 24-hour support for the development of foreign enterprises. It is precisely this careful protection that has brought about more new projects and investments. Last year, the amount of capital received by foreign companies in Taicang increased to over 500 million US dollars, with German companies accounting for 48% of the total.

"We will give full play to the advantages of Taicang as the preferred investment destination for German enterprises, continuously improve the industrial chain, strengthen dual education and training, and improve the business environment as a demonstration. We will increase the attraction of German and European enterprises to achieve high-quality development", said Qian Lili, deputy director of the Investment Promotion Bureau of Taicang City.

In 2023, Jiangsu established a list of 100 provincial-level foreign investment projects, set up more than 400 batches of overseas investment groups, and promoted the landing of over 1400 economic and trade cooperation projects. In the meantime, the province introduced the Regulations on Promoting and Protecting Foreign Investment, which has convinced foreign-funded enterprises to continuously increase their investment in Jiangsu. In response to import and export pressures, Jiangsu allocated 860 million yuan in funds to support enterprises in expanding their markets and competing for orders.

In the Lianyungang sub-zone of the Jiangsu Free Trade Zone, a foreign cargo ship loaded with various electronic goods was seen slowly approaching the dock.

Thanks to Lianyungang's pioneering online approval system for maritime affairs, foreign crew members are no longer required to submit qualification certificates and other materials on-site before going through customs clearance and disembarking for operations after identity verification.

At the China-Kazakhstan logistics base, Chinese-made products such as automotive parts and electronic equipment were loaded into the "bonded+export" cargo containers of the China Europe freight train to be exported to Central Asia and Europe.

"We have broken through the limitation that general trade goods and bonded transit goods cannot be shipped in the same container, so as to have saved enterprises an average of 73% of logistics costs per shipment and more than 15 days of waiting time for shipment", said Ge Hengxue, general manager of China-Kazakhstan International Logistics Co., Ltd. in Lianyungang.

Taking advantage of its position as the intersection of the new Eurasian land-sea transportation corridor, the Lianyungang Free Trade Zone has implemented a series of reform measures so as to promote increasingly frequent cross-border trade and bring Jiangsu closer to the world.

"The convenience of this series of policies has allowed us to expand our business in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with an increase of 6.7% in order volume over the past year," said Chen Long, manager of Multimodal Transport LCL Department at Wanjia Jiyun Logistics (Lianyungang) Co., Ltd.

"We will continue to improve our market access, reform system integration, and collaborative innovation in accordance with the General Secretary's requirements for building a two-way open hub with global convergence, accelerate the upgrading of the hub, and deepen high-level two-way opening", said Yang Bo, deputy director of the Lianyungang Area Comprehensive Coordination Bureau of China (Jiangsu) Pilot Free Trade Zone.

Over the past year, Jiangsu Pilot Free Trade Zone has registered 100 new institutional innovation achievements with 25 replicated and promoted nationwide. In 2023, Jiangsu recorded a foreign direct investment of 25.34 billion US dollars, accounting for 15.5% of the country's total and continuing to rank first in the country. The reinvestment of foreign investment profits increased by 25.8% year-on-year, ranking first in the country. The province's import and export amounted to 5.25 trillion yuan, ranking second in the country for 21 consecutive years. Jiangsu's import and export to "the Belt and Road" countries reached the highest level since the "Belt and Road" initiative was put forward.