Better business environment benefits all

Editor's Note: The Government Work Report released on March 5 has charted a course for China's economic development for this year. By setting fairly robust growth targets, the country is set to be the locomotive pulling the world economy amid global economic headwinds. A number of pro-growth efforts have been unveiled to spur innovation and continue opening-up. The country has also released the Foreign Investment Law to better protect the rights of foreign businesses in China. China Daily polled senior executives from multinational corporations to understand their positioning, perception and predictions of the Chinese market.

Q1: The year 2019 marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. What in your opinion are China's biggest achievements to date? What are the biggest achievements made by your company so far?

Q2: China's economic growth moderated to 6.6 percent last year as it shifted its focus to high-quality growth. How does your "China strategy" fit into the new trend?

Q3: What are your views on the Foreign Investment Law? How will China's ongoing efforts to further open up the economy and protect the legitimate interests of foreign companies help your business in China?

Q4: With disposable incomes rising, China is accelerating the development of the service sector to satisfy people's growing desire for a better life. How will this create opportunities for your company?

Q5: What are your views on the government's ongoing efforts to cut red tape and enhance work efficiency?

Christina Zhu,

A1 Over the past 70 years since its founding, the People's Republic of China has achieved great economic, technological, and cultural progress. Among them all, the biggest change is the incredible improvement in people's living standards, which is reflected in the increasing purchasing power of the public.

Fonterra entered the Chinese mainland market more than 40 years ago, and established an integrated business that covers grass to glass, encompassing consumer brands, food service, farms and ingredients. We are dedicated to bringing high-quality New Zealand dairy nutrition and farming technologies to China, and utilizing our world-class experience in food safety and quality to develop China's dairy industry for generations to come.

A2 Fonterra China adopts a value-add strategy, which means we aim to provide higher-value products to consumers, rather than just commodities. With higher living standards in China, Chinese consumers are pursuing more high-quality products over low-price ones. Our China business strategy reflects these macroeconomic and consumption trends.

Fonterra has established an integrated business that covers all parts of the dairy supply chain, from grass to glass, and encompassing consumer brands, food service, farms and ingredients.

A3 We welcome the Foreign Investment Law as it will help create a better environment for multinational companies' development in China. Fair competition will help enterprises to compete fairly and fully, and contribute to the Chinese economy without worries, which will fundamentally boost market confidence.

Fonterra has benefited from China's ongoing opening-up policy. After being on the Chinese mainland for more than 40 years, Fonterra has developed into a large-scale business with 1,700 employees across the country. An open and legitimate business environment will help us thrive and contribute further to China's future growth.

A4 With rising living conditions and a desire for better lives, Chinese consumers are developing a taste for healthy food, like dairy. Fonterra is committed to providing Chinese consumers with trusted and high-quality dairy nutrition.

The upgrade from nondairy substitutes to natural dairy ingredients in the food service industry is a great example of these trends. We're seeing more bakeries and tea houses turning to butter and cream to create tastier and healthier products.

A5 We appreciate the government's efforts in this area as this will benefit our development in China. A more efficient working environment will surely boost the dynamic of the economy and help grow businesses like ours. Fonterra is committed to supporting the sustainable development of China's dairy industry through our advanced techniques and management.

William Zhao,

A1 Obviously China has witnessed historical achievements in the past 70 years, especially after it started to carry out its reform and opening-up policy about 40 years ago. Today, China has become the world's second-largest economy and people's living standards have been hugely improved.

With a booming economy and improvements in living standards, the demand for energy has grown rapidly in the past few decades. Total is a major energy player committed to supplying better energy that is safer, cleaner, more efficient and affordable. We are honored to make a contribution to the growth of the Chinese energy industry and meet the demands of Chinese people by developing our business across the entire value chain in the country.

A2 With China's transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development, a more sustainable and greener economy is increasingly emphasized. In the energy sector, China is transforming its energy structure to a low carbon mix.

As a responsible energy major, Total's strategy works to respond to environmental challenges, and therefore perfectly aligns with China's pursuit of energy transformation. We stopped producing coal in 2014. As the world's second-largest liquefied natural gas operator, Total has been a key partner in the development of China's natural gas supply while also advancing electricity production and storage applications.

A3 The newly passed Foreign Investment Law provides a clearer, unified and more powerful legal protection for foreign investors, thus creating a level playing field that is better regulated and fair. In particular, an article stipulates that "the government will apply a pre-establishment national treatment and negative list management system to foreign investors".

The passing of the law is an important signal to the world that China is committed to further opening-up and improving the investment environment for foreign investors, a major testament that the country is actively taking concrete initiatives. It undoubtedly reinforces our confidence in the Chinese market.

A5 China's efforts to streamline red tape and enhance work efficiency have borne fruit. Total benefits from it as administrative reviews are simplified and approval procedures are speeded up. It also enables us to better understand the regulations and policies and give feedback in a more efficient manner.

In essence, these efforts indicate China's commitment to building a service-oriented government and to optimizing its business environment. I believe a stable, fair, transparent and predictable business environment is the foundation for developing a modern economy, ensuring high-quality development and stimulating market vitality and social creativity.

Christian Lee,

A1 The biggest achievement is the strong economic development that China has achieved throughout the course of the past 70 years that led to the diversification of the economy through innovation, creating opportunities enabling many people to enjoy better lives. China has now become an important player on the international stage. Our global presence and community, coupled with our "Created in China, with China, for China and beyond China" strategy, serve as a solid platform and springboard for Chinese creators and companies to enter the global stage and scale their businesses. Against this backdrop, WeWork China has more than 70 locations in eight cities across the country that are serving more than 90,000 members in just two and a half years, and we are excited to be part of the growth and innovation-driven economy in China.

A2 As a global community of creators, WeWork has consistently supported local community development ever since it entered the Chinese mainland market in July 2016. While we are just at the beginning, WeWork is on a mission toward supporting the nation's transformational journey from factory to laboratory, further supporting China's "innovation-driven economic development". With a strong combination of localized community, services, partners, members, talent and technology, coupled with closer partnership with the Chinese government authorities, WeWork China will continue to help drive local creation and innovation, connect local creators with the international community to realize sustainable growth.

A3 We welcome an open market and economy and we appreciate the Chinese government's ongoing efforts to provide support to foreign companies. We have been working closely with local governments, partners, organizations and other stakeholders to provide the best experience for our members and, more importantly, we help connect local Chinese members and companies with our international community.

A4 At WeWork, our mission is to help people work to make a life, not just a living. Within our dynamic communities, our Chinese members from diverse industries are creating better solutions, services and experiences to produce a positive impact on local communities, while creating jobs for the economy. We help Chinese creators, companies and business thrive and attract talent, energize and power innovation in neighborhoods, and accelerate economic growth for cities.

A5 We welcome the Chinese government's efforts on making it more efficient for all companies who are running businesses in China. This helps us improve our work efficiency and more importantly, enables us to focus more on providing better service and product development to help more local creators.

Christine Lam,

A1 China has experienced a tremendous transformation and seen tremendous achievements over the past 70 years. The reform and opening-up has led to significant advancement in its socioeconomic development.

Citi first came to China in 1902 and became one of the first to locally incorporate in China in 2007. Citi has benefited greatly from the opening-up and reform of China's financial sector over the past few decades. We are fortunate to have achieved many market firsts, especially in areas that relate to promoting market development and in attracting foreign investment and capital, such as the Futures Margin Depository Bank license and Chinese local bond underwriter license. Citi is the only American bank that has full license/capability to serve foreign institutional investors access the China bond market from trade to settlement and custody.

A2 China is transitioning its economy from one that is export-driven, investment-led, and competing on cost of labor to one that is increasingly domestically focused and consumer-driven with growth in the services space. From our perspective, companies in China need us more now than ever given the complex issues that only a truly global bank can offer support on.

We have a strong track record in China. Our target market is aligned with our global strategy of supporting clients that benefit most from our global network across institutional and consumer banking.

A3 We welcome and applaud China's continuing efforts and commitment in protecting the legitimate interests of foreign companies. The Foreign Investment Law will help further enhance fair competition and create a stable, transparent and predictable market environment. We believe that both Citi China and our clients will benefit from it.

A4 This fits well with our ambition in China - to be a pre-eminent wealth management advisory foreign bank, with a digitized card offering led by lending. Our target customers are globally minded affluent individuals in China, who can get the most benefit from our products and services. Our comprehensive offering covers the diversified financial needs of our target customers in different stages of their lives, including wealth management, insurance, credit cards and mortgages. We plan to invest more in digital initiatives to help expand our distribution reach and take a bigger share of the wealth management business in China.

A5 China's efforts to enhance work efficiency will further attract foreign investment and be crucial in advancing economic development. We welcome any move that sustains steady economic growth. China is a priority market for Citi globally. We are committed to being a part of and supporting China's long-term sustainable development through serving a targeted and well-defined client group.

Alain Crozier,

A1 China has made remarkable improvements to people's lives. The poverty rate has dropped to around 3 percent; the national pension scheme covers more than 900 million people; and basic medical insurance covers 1.35 billion people, in what is now the largest social security network in the world.

Microsoft has been on the Chinese mainland for more than 26 years. We're taking a long view on China. Since Bill Gates opened our research facility in Beijing in 1998, it has become our largest research and development operation outside the United States.

When President Xi Jinping visited our Redmond campus in 2015, we were honored that he spoke so highly of our contributions to China's development and to the development of China's software and IT sectors. Our business in China today continues to be focused on empowering Chinese people and organizations to transform and thrive in the new era.

A2 China's view on how innovation-driven development applies to technology aligns well with Microsoft's view on digital transformation. In this new digital world, cloud computing will form the foundation on which organizations of all sizes will create their digital futures. Microsoft, as the first multinational company to offer public cloud services in China, is uniquely positioned to help people and organizations in China to transform, to thrive and to grow their businesses globally.

A3 We appreciate the Chinese government's efforts to unify the legal framework for foreign investment administration, as well as its commitment to further promoting the stable development of foreign investment in China. China is one of the most exciting growth markets in the world for Microsoft. We are encouraged by the efforts of the Chinese government to further open up, and we look forward to continuing to empower Chinese people and organizations to achieve more in this more open environment.

A4 I have a great deal of confidence in Microsoft's business prospects in China. The Chinese government has embraced digital transformation like few other nations in the world. Chinese enterprises across almost every industry recognize the value of digital transformation and are looking for partners to help them move forward. Microsoft is uniquely positioned to be the technology partner of choice, and we are already helping Chinese organizations across sectors to achieve their transformation goals.

A5 These efforts are encouraging and we believe that our technologies and platforms such as Office 365, Dynamics 365 and the depth and breadth of our offerings could play a role to facilitate that. For example, for the past few years at the China Development Forum, we have provided surface devices loaded with Office 365 productivity solutions to help every participant have a great conference experience.

Huang Jian,

A1 The extraordinary achievements China has made over the past 70 years are obvious and inspiring. Especially since China's reform and opening-up, the country has achieved world-renowned achievements in every industry including fintech, automobile, real estate, information technology and internet.

Experian, which entered the Chinese mainland in 2005, has witnessed many great changes in the country and benefited from them. About 80 percent of the Fortune Global 500 companies in China purchase different products and services from us.

A2 The global macroeconomic downturn is affecting almost every industry. In China, the internet and e-commerce are still experiencing rapid development. As China's digital economy has developed rapidly, online fraud has also begun to spread. Experian is dedicated to helping enterprises solve risk management problems of fraud and data leakage. We provide risk management solutions for many leading companies in different industries in China, including banking, auto finance, consumer finance, internet finance and e-commerce.

A3 As the Chinese economy enters a stage of high-quality development, it is imperative for China to adopt a higher quality of opening-up. As a result, many areas have become more open to foreign investors, including data services, electronic information and finance. This allows Experian to take our technology advantage to leverage lawful traditional data as well as third-party alternative data to offer better financial services together with our business partners to Chinese clients.

A4 For Experian, one essential approach to meet Chinese people's growing needs for better lives is serving them with better information products and bringing them easier access to convenient financial services. In this regard, the Chinese market represents huge potential for Experian.

Currently, alternative data and artificial intelligence are developing quickly in China and globally. Given different market circumstances, foreign companies like Experian are being given more opportunities to bring their mature technology to China with localized adoption.

A5 In China's financial information field, the digital transformation of the financial industry is the most significant approach to improve efficiency. This reflects China's determination and efforts to improve the quality of financial services and enhance work efficiency. Experian will further leverage our rich experience accumulated in the international market and launch more localization attempts in China.

(China Daily 03/27/2019 page9)