Recently, the Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province announced the latest situation of attracting foreign investment in Guangdong from January to February 2025: 3484 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in the province, a year-on-year increase of 16.8%; The actual amount of foreign investment used was 23.31 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.9%, with a growth rate better than that of the whole country and major economic provinces, demonstrating strong foreign investment attraction. From the perspective of the overall environment, China faces a series of complex challenges in attracting foreign investment. Currently, the global economic recovery is slow, especially with insufficient economic growth momentum in developed economies, and global foreign direct investment (FDI) remains relatively sluggish. At the same time, the intensification of geopolitical conflicts and the apparent rise of unilateralism and protectionism have also had an undeniable impact on foreign investment. Guangdong is a province with a large amount of foreign investment. Since the reform and opening up, more than 350000 foreign-funded enterprises have been established, and the actual use of foreign investment has reached nearly 600 billion US dollars. How can Guangdong achieve counter trend growth in the face of new situations and challenges? The actual use of foreign investment in the manufacturing industry increased by 34.5% year-on-year. Looking at Guangdong's "foreign investment report card" for the first two months of this year, the performance of foreign investment in the manufacturing industry is impressive. In January and February, the actual use of foreign investment in the manufacturing industry in the province was 7.41 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.5%, 28.6 percentage points faster than the overall growth rate, accounting for 31.8% of the total actual use of foreign investment in the province. From the distribution of cities, in the first two months of this year, major foreign-funded cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen led the growth of foreign investment. 1040 foreign-invested enterprises were newly established in Guangzhou, a year-on-year increase of 4%, with actual use of foreign investment of 7.424 billion yuan; There were 1388 newly established foreign-invested enterprises in Shenzhen, a year-on-year increase of 23.8%. The actual use of foreign capital was 8.16 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16%. The actual amount of foreign investment used in 9 mainland cities in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area was 21.55 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.9%, accounting for 92.4% of the total actual amount of foreign investment used in the province. Among the cities in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong, cities such as Shantou, Qingyuan, Yangjiang, and Meizhou have seen a significant increase in the actual use of foreign investment, which fully demonstrates the positive effects of Guangdong's implementation of the "Hundred Counties, Thousand Towns, and Ten Thousand Villages High Quality Development Project" and the vigorous promotion of regional coordinated development. Looking at the source of foreign investment, developed economies have shown significant growth in investment in Guangdong. Investment from developed countries such as Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea increased by 52.2%, with investment from the European Union region growing by 70.4%; Growth of 45.2% from ASEAN countries. Although the economic growth of developed economies around the world is relatively weak, their willingness to invest in Guangdong remains strong for a simple reason: investing in Guangdong means making money. In Guangzhou Economic Development Zone, global biotechnology company BeiGene continues to increase its investment in innovative drug research and development. After the large molecule biopharmaceutical production base built by this company in the China Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City reaches production capacity, it will become the largest enterprise in China's PD-1 monoclonal antibody drug production capacity. At Nanshan Science and Technology Park in Shenzhen, Siemens Healthineers has developed for over 20 years and has become its largest R&D and manufacturing base outside of Germany. One out of every three Siemens Healthineers magnetic resonance systems in the global market is produced in Shenzhen. Not long ago, Siemens Healthineers laid the foundation for the construction of a high-end medical equipment R&D and manufacturing base in Shenzhen, which is expected to be put into operation by the end of 2027 at the latest. We eagerly hope that more foreign-funded enterprises will invest in Guangdong, take root in Guangdong, and achieve better development in the historical opportunities of high-level opening up and high-quality development in Guangdong Zhu Xiaojun, Deputy Director of the Provincial Department of Commerce, said. More than 100 key investment promotion activities will be held. In just two months since the beginning of the year, there have been seven foreign-funded projects in Guangdong Province with actual inflows exceeding 100 million US dollars and actual foreign investment of 1.5 billion US dollars. What are the practical measures for attracting large investment and attracting large businesses in Guangdong? Last May, Guangdong introduced a new round of foreign investment incentive policies, rewarding foreign investment projects that meet relevant conditions and invest in six cities in the Pearl River Delta (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan) with actual foreign investment of over 50 million US dollars that year at a rate of 3% for high-tech manufacturing, 2% for high-tech service and general manufacturing, and 1% for other industries. The actual foreign investment threshold for the other 15 cities has been relaxed to 10 million US dollars. It is understood that the first batch of eligible foreign investment projects will receive relevant rewards in the first half of this year. Guangdong has also introduced policies to support regional headquarters of multinational corporations. In recent years, three batches of 64 regional headquarters of multinational corporations have been selected. For foreign-funded enterprises that meet the relevant conditions and have been awarded the regional headquarters of multinational corporations, those belonging to the six cities in the Pearl River Delta (as above) and have actual foreign investment of more than 10 million US dollars in the same year can receive a one-time reward of 5 million RMB. The actual foreign investment threshold for the other 15 cities has been relaxed to 5 million US dollars. The pilot policies for opening up in fields such as healthcare and telecommunications are more favorable for foreign businesses in Guangdong to open their doors. In September last year, the government deployed a pilot project to expand opening up in the medical field. Guangdong Pilot Free Trade Zone was approved to allow foreign-invested enterprises to engage in the development and application of human stem cell, gene diagnosis and treatment technologies for product registration, listing and production; Guangzhou and Shenzhen have been approved to establish wholly foreign-owned hospitals (excluding traditional Chinese medicine, excluding mergers and acquisitions of public hospitals). Last October, Shenzhen became one of the first pilot areas in China to expand the opening up of value-added telecommunications services to the outside world. Not long ago, the "Guangdong Province 2025 Investment Promotion Work Plan" was issued. This year, the province will hold more than 100 key investment promotion activities under the "Invest in Guangdong" series, including 41 at the provincial level and no less than 59 at the municipal level. There are good policies in the province and good services in the cities. Taking Huizhou as an example, through innovative "full cycle services", the ExxonMobil Huizhou ethylene project with a total investment of over 100 billion yuan has achieved rapid approval, extreme collaboration, and extreme chain extension. On the one hand, a transnational service team led by the mayor will be established to complete the sea area demonstration in 3 days and land clearance in 7 days, creating a new speed for domestic heavy chemical project approval. On the other hand, a customized "land use construction production supporting" full cycle list was created to solve 47 key issues such as equipment import and cross-border settlement in advance, ensuring that the first phase project is put into operation 6 months ahead of schedule. At the same time, Huizhou has also built exclusive docks, pipe galleries and other infrastructure, driving 16 international supporting enterprises such as Swiss Clariant Catalyst to settle in, achieving "leading entry and chain gathering". In January and February of this year, Huizhou actually absorbed 2.141 billion yuan of foreign investment, a year-on-year increase of 110%. (New Society)