Hangzhou, where foreign investment has been fully upgraded, started with a cold dinner party on the shore of Qiandao Lake

Qiandao Lake at the end of April, the wind is light and the blue waves are light.

On the last weekend before the "May Day" holiday, a special group of guests were welcomed here. More than 30 entrepreneurs and senior managers from German-funded enterprises were invited to the beautiful scenery of Chun'an County to carry out industrial investment exchange activities.

This is only one of the microcosm of Hangzhou's innovative transformation of the direction of foreign investment attraction work and the improvement of investment promotion paths in recent times. At present, the impact of the epidemic on the recruitment of foreign investment still exists, how to further improve the effectiveness of Hangzhou's foreign investment attraction work, and help the high-quality development of Hangzhou's economy in the new era, has become a practical problem in front of "investment promotion".

In this context, the current foreign investment attraction work in Hangzhou has been comprehensively upgraded. Among them, through the above-mentioned exchange activities to deepen the emotional connection of foreign-funded enterprises to Hangzhou, it has become an important part of innovating the government-enterprise exchange path and establishing a full-process service system for foreign-invested enterprises in the form of regular visits to foreign-funded enterprises, questionnaire surveys for foreign-funded enterprises in Hangzhou, and enterprise earnest talks by country. Judging from the results of the "opening of the door" in the first quarter of 2021, the increasingly open domestic market space and the increasingly international Hangzhou have become the first choice for foreign investment.

<h4>From presentations to cold dinner receptions</h4>

"In the past, it was two long conference tables, but this time it was a separate Western-style high table, no chair, it was really rare."

In the hotel where the German-funded enterprise Qiandao Lake Line stayed, the 21st Century Business Herald reporter saw that the staff of the hotel's outdoor venue had set up a Western-style high table early, and this different on-site layout also surprised the hotel staff.

At the same time, in order to welcome German merchants and friends, Qiandao Lake beer was specially placed on the spot, which became the finishing touch of this different exchange meeting.

The detailed transformation of this venue layout is very intriguing. The absence of a chair may mean that German entrepreneurs from afar can't find a place to sit on the spot and have to walk around with beer glasses.

Replacing the table with a high-foot cold dining table, and replacing the front seat with a pleasant pace, it seems that some "snubbing" German merchants are actually very careful. This pursuit of a more international form of business activities creates a more relaxed communication environment, which is more in line with the business communication habits of Foreign Entrepreneurs in Europe under the requirements of informal meeting occasions.

Judging from the actual communication effect, foreign companies are impressed by this more affinity form of communication. Many responsible persons of German-funded enterprises who participated in the Qiandao Lake trip told reporters that compared with the traditional forms of government-enterprise communication such as holding investment matchmaking meetings, they are more familiar with this kind of international business exchange activities, and can more fully obtain policy information on Hangzhou's services to foreign-funded enterprises and help enterprises accurately seize the opportunities for investment and development in Hangzhou. "My hometown has many rolling mountains, and after coming to Hangzhou, I also saw such rolling mountains and rivers, which made me feel a sense of homesickness in Germany." A person in charge of a German-funded enterprise sighed to reporters that the natural scenery of Hangzhou and the friendly and relaxed communication environment gave him the feeling of being at home.

From the promotion meeting to the cold dinner and wine party to talk and exchange, although the nature of the activity and the purpose of investment promotion have not changed, the thinking mode and action mode reflected in it have undergone great changes. The effect of information exchange and emotional connection behind this subtle change has also begun to show obvious differences, and it is clear that the latter way is easier to narrow the emotional distance between Hangzhou and foreign-funded enterprises.

<h4>From minor changes to "three major changes"</h4>

Behind the small change of replacing the conference table with a Western-style high table, Hangzhou is currently innovating to improve the quality of service foreign-funded enterprises, stabilize the confidence of foreign investment, and change the overall trend of foreign-funded enterprises' investment promotion work.

The reporter learned that this trend can be summarized as "three major changes", which is embodied in: On the one hand, the current foreign investment attraction work in Hangzhou has changed from attaching importance to the hard promotion of foreign investment attraction to focusing on "soft connection" with foreign-funded enterprises, changing the previous foreign investment promotion meeting as the main way of attracting foreign investment, changing to emotional contact to deepen the emotional connection of foreign-funded enterprises to Hangzhou; on the other hand, in the future, Hangzhou's foreign-funded enterprises will also change from attaching importance to the attraction of recent foreign-funded projects to focusing on long-term industrial planning. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Hangzhou's foreign investment attraction will pay more attention to the long-term planning of foreign-funded enterprises in China and attract foreign-funded enterprise projects that are in line with Hangzhou's "14th Five-Year Plan"; in addition, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Hangzhou will also shift from focusing on excavating the stock of foreign-funded enterprises in China to focusing on grasping the increase in investment in China.

In the future, Hangzhou will pay more attention to the long-term investment of enterprises investing in China, as long as these enterprises have plans to increase investment in China, and the project is in line with Hangzhou's industrial needs, Hangzhou can open its doors to such foreign-funded projects.

In this context, focusing on strengthening the "soft connection" with foreign-funded enterprises, the Hangzhou Municipal Investment Promotion Bureau is currently focusing on establishing a full-process service system for foreign-invested enterprises to promote the endogenous project capital of local foreign-funded enterprises. Among them, there are regular "breakfast meetings" and "morning tea parties" for investment promotion, regular "one-on-one" visits to foreign-funded enterprises and foreign-funded projects, strengthening the role of the Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment and conducting questionnaire surveys on all foreign-funded enterprises in Hangzhou; and regularly holding earnest talks and exchange activities for enterprises at different levels, in different industries, and in different countries.

The relevant person in charge of the Municipal Investment Promotion Bureau said that through the whole process of the service system, you can obtain the first-hand investment ideas of foreign-funded enterprises, understand the first-hand investment information of partners in the industrial chain, supply chain and ecological chain of enterprises, so as to accelerate the docking and promotion, guide new projects, new products and new production lines of foreign-funded enterprises and their parent companies to land in Hangzhou, promote capital increase and share expansion, and attract enterprises.

<h4>The attractiveness of the city is even more prominent</h4>

Under the important influence of the three major leaps and changes in the investment attraction work and the meticulous investment promotion work, although the investment promotion work in the first quarter of this year is still facing the test of the epidemic, Hangzhou has achieved a "good start" in the use of foreign investment, and the overall quality is stable.

According to statistics, from January to March this year, 224 foreign-invested enterprises were newly established in Hangzhou, and the actual utilization of foreign capital was 2.049 billion US dollars, an increase of 61.71% year-on-year, far exceeding the national and provincial growth rate. In the first quarter, Hangzhou introduced a total of 23 large projects with a total investment of more than 30 million US dollars, including 13 newly approved projects and 10 capital increase projects.

In the current environment where the epidemic has affected the direct investment of multinational enterprises, market opportunities in cities such as Hangzhou are increasingly favored by multinational capital and enterprises. This is in sharp contrast to the current trend of continuous decline in direct investment by multinational enterprises under the influence of the current overseas epidemic. "Especially after the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in early 2020, the management and services of the Hangzhou government were particularly in place, quickly controlling the epidemic, enterprises quickly resumed work and production, most enterprises achieved rapid growth in China in 2020, and the proportion of Chinese business of the vast majority of foreign-funded enterprises in the global business also achieved a rapid increase."

Analysts said that in fact, many foreign-funded enterprises in Hangzhou are now proud of entering the Chinese market and settling in cities like Hangzhou. China's ability to control the epidemic and the increasingly open market space have allowed more and more foreign enterprises to see investment opportunities in the current international market environment. As one of the core cities in the Yangtze River Delta region with the strongest economic development momentum in China, Hangzhou has advantages that cannot be ignored in terms of industrial policy, market space and talent environment. "At present, Hangzhou's digital economy is very developed, and the trend of digital economy empowering the manufacturing industry to build a new momentum for industrial development is becoming more and more obvious, which is a development opportunity that many traditional manufacturing-oriented foreign-funded enterprises value." The above-mentioned analysts told reporters that many foreign-funded enterprises hope to take advantage of Hangzhou's digital economy advantages and innovation and entrepreneurship atmosphere to empower the company's main business through the digital economy and form industrial intelligent manufacturing solutions to enhance the digital production and operation capabilities of enterprises.

From this point of view, the excellent foreign investment utilization results handed over by Hangzhou in the first quarter are also the embodiment of the current comprehensive strength of the country and the continuous improvement of the attractiveness of the city.

Looking forward to the "14th Five-Year Plan", Hangzhou will realize the three major changes in the direction of foreign capital utilization and build a normalized full-process service system for foreign-invested enterprises, which will lay a solid foundation for the use of foreign capital to reach a new high in the new era and become a key endogenous power source for the rapid development of the urban economy in the future.

For more information, please download the 21 Finance APP