Editor's Note: The China International Import Expo draws global corporate giants, world trade leaders and up-and-coming stars in business and commerce. As the expo launches its fifth edition this year, China Daily spoke to senior executives of multinational corporations who have participated in the event for five straight years, presenting their views on the CIIE's role in boosting global economic recovery from COVID-19.
Q1: For the fifth straight year, your company is participating in the annual CIIE this November. Why is the event so important to you? What are your expectations this year?
Q2: Is there any added significance to the CIIE in the context of the downward pressures on the global economy brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and its softening effect on global demand?
Q3: China has been striving to increase imports to support manufacturers and producers in other economies. The country has also continuously opened its markets and economy to foreign investors and foreign companies. Overall, what do you think are China's contributions to the world?
Q4: Your company operates in a specific industry. What prospects does that industry currently have in China? And what's the biggest opportunity for your company as the country pursues high-quality development?
Q5: What's your view on China's current level of opening-up? How can high-standard opening-up be made even more effective in the future?
Jennie Li, vice-president of Emerson Electric Co and general manager of Emerson China. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
A1 Emerson is glad to embrace the CIIE again as an "old friend".Upholding our confidence and commitment to the Chinese economy, Emerson values the importance of the CIIE, where we can showcase our advanced technologies, innovative solutions and expertise. We are making our fifth consecutive appearance, which consistently helps nourish our deep ties with the Chinese market.
At this year's CIIE, with the theme of Together for A Net-Zero Future, we present our latest technologies, services and sustainable solutions in the field of new energy, energy efficiency and environmental management. We are eager to help China-based enterprises achieve industry benchmarks. We want to continue leveraging this platform to grasp the latest market trends in China and strengthen partnerships with our customers, suppliers and partners.
A2 The CIIE demonstrates the resilience and vitality of the Chinese economy, as well as the deep accumulation and profound strength of the country's market.
The expo is also becoming a solid force to advance the recovery and sustained growth of the global economy. As a higher-level and more professional event joined by world-renowned exhibitors, we believe the fifth CIIE has a more substantial spillover effect and provides shared opportunities in China's growing economy for global participants.
A3 The country's tremendous market and resilient economy have made it a major driving force for global economic growth, while it is also an important driver in promoting sustainable development worldwide. Based on its carbon peak and neutrality targets, the country is making every effort to help the planet go green.
A4 In China, manufacturing is the country's foundation and plays a crucial role in its power and prestige. Besides enabling continual and steady growth, the country's manufacturing is devoted to achieving high-quality development by advancing digitalization and intelligent transformation. Innovation and key technologies are becoming the core drivers of the sector.
A5 China's opening-up is a critical contributor to a closer connection between the country and the world and higher economic growth for all. With a more open and fair environment, foreign companies will help China actively and deeply integrate into international trade, promoting a more open and prosperous global economy.
Adhering to our regional development strategy of "In China, for China", Emerson will continue to leverage important platforms, such as the CIIE, to seize the huge market opportunities and expand our strategic positioning, further boosting the country's high standards in opening-up with our innovative solutions and persistent efforts.
Andy Ho, member of the Royal Philips Executive Committee and president of Philips (China). (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
A1 The CIIE is a significant platform for Philips in China to exchange, exhibit our products and solutions, make our brand known to the Chinese public and find business partners.
We expect to leverage this great opportunity to further introduce and localize cutting-edge innovations to China, listen to the feedback of clients and consumers to better serve the market, seek more business partnerships and cooperation, and jointly explore opportunities to grow in the country with all players.
A2 The CIIE is an important event that boosts China's economic development this year, promoting its wider opening-up and helping to achieve mutual benefits and win-win results. China is the second-largest market for Philips and is important for the company's future growth plans. Adhering to our long-term commitment of "In China, for China", we are accelerating to bring advanced innovations, deploy stronger innovation capabilities and push forward local innovation to better serve and root in China.
A3 Given its scale and the crucial role it plays in supply chains across multiple industries, the world depends on a strong Chinese economy. Furthermore, the Chinese market provides companies with significant growth opportunities. With deep roots in China since 1985, when we set up our first joint venture, Philips has witnessed and participated in the rapid development and has achieved continuous growth by deploying a wide range of business footprints in the country, including R&D, manufacturing and services.
A4 China is one of the largest markets for health technology with dynamic momentum and potential. Along with its economic development, and the transformation and upgrade of the healthcare industry, we are dedicated to the Chinese market.
In 2022, we have further driven our "China Strategy" through local innovation, local manufacturing and partnership with the local ecosystem to better serve the Chinese market with faster speed, more precise perspective and more optimized approaches.
A5 China's efforts to promote the dual-circulation development paradigm allow the domestic and overseas markets to reinforce each other, which creates a new impetus for win-win cooperation and offers more opportunities to the rest of the world for shared growth.
China's economy is deeply integrated with the world economy. With the country's continuous efforts to broaden market access and share opportunities with foreign investors and companies, we look forward to seeing a more open and inclusive business environment for multinational companies to develop and grow, with more global cooperation and partnerships facilitated around various industries.
Hou Yang, corporate vice president, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Greater China Region. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
A1 Microsoft has attended every CIIE and this one coincides with Microsoft's 30th anniversary in China. The CIIE has evolved into a platform to share ideas, connect with customers and partners and share innovations from not only Microsoft, but also our customers and partners. This year, our booth highlights China innovations and global partner solutions around sustainability, industry transformation and healthcare aimed at empowering efficiency, resilience and better outcomes.
A2 The CIIE is well-timed this year to showcase both the forward momentum of economic recovery as well as the true value of technology solutions for global recovery. Technology platforms and the ecosystem of local and international solutions providers have helped the world adapt to COVID-19 in remarkable ways, accelerating the adoption of cloud solutions that empower hybrid work, using data intelligence for efficiency, and much more. As a result, companies today are much more nimble, resilient and sustainable and therefore, more capable of ramping up and pivoting to what's next.
A3 The efficiency gains, flexibility and resiliency benefits of the digital transformation that many companies have chosen to adopt during these challenging years have empowered many to not only stay in business, supplying goods and services to the world, but also to grow in the face of uncertainty. They are creating new business models, digital products and more. This means that businesses are well-positioned to serve the world and help stabilize the global economy today. The potential of China's digital economy presents opportunities for both domestic and foreign businesses, with Chinese digital innovation serving as a pipeline for global improvements across industries and organizations.
A4 In recent years, the market environment has been moving toward sustainability, industrial transformation and healthcare innovation. Companies like Microsoft have opportunities to advance these transformations with technological solutions. The opportunities involve the convergence of the global reach and vast depth of value of Microsoft's global platforms, services and other resources with the many innovative Chinese technology companies in our ecosystem providing localized solutions and services to deliver value to customers from anywhere.
A5 Microsoft is in the business of optimizing business results through digital technology and empowering partners with data-driven transformations. Moving forward, we will continue to leverage our leading platforms, technologies, services and resources to help multinational companies deepen their presence in China, and help Chinese companies grow their international opportunities, while bringing China's innovative power to the world.
Frank Meng, chairman of Qualcomm China. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
A1 The CIIE is an important platform for international exchanges and cooperation and a great opportunity to further communicate with more industries in China. Qualcomm has participated as an exhibitor five times in a row, which has strengthened in-depth interactions with the government, industry and customers, and demonstrated the achievements and advantages of industrial chain cooperation in globalization.
In 2022, Qualcomm's participation shows its confidence in the long-term sustainability of the Chinese market and its determination to work with Chinese partners to develop domestic and international markets and drive win-win development in the era of intelligent connectivity.
A2 While the COVID-19 pandemic has caused uncertainties in the global economy, the importance of connectivity like 5G has become abundantly clear. With the development of 5G and AI, the metaverse will blur the lines between the physical and digital worlds and usher in a new era of highly immersive, customizable digital experiences. This will fuel the emergence of exciting new-use cases and opportunities for consumers and enterprises.
A3 The rapid growth of 5G and the success of mobile technology have been broadly enabled by globally standardized technologies. To unlock the growth potential of 5G, Qualcomm and China's industry partners have launched the 5G Pioneer Initiative and 5G IoT Innovation Initiative. These efforts have also promoted related solutions in global markets including Europe, North America and Southeast Asia, and propelled innovation and development of the global digital economy.
A4 In China, the digital economy has already been explored to a deeper and broader level and has become a key driver in promoting consumption upgrades, stabilizing economic growth and driving high-quality economic development. We believe that these key technologies, like 5G, AI and cloud computing, will not only increase productivity, but also enable Chinese partners to sharpen their competitive edge. We are now more than ever confident that there is an even broader space for cooperation between Qualcomm and China's industry partners.
A5 China has shown its determination to steadfastly pursue a higher-level opening-up and enhance mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries to achieve win-win outcomes for all. These past few years, Qualcomm has benefited from China's opening-up policy and optimized its business environment and economic development. Moving forward, we will continue to partner with industry partners to fuel the high-quality and sustainable development of China's economy.
Fang Ying, president of Ericsson China. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
A1 The CIIE is an immensely significant and influential platform for China to promote a new wave of high-level opening-up and stimulate international exchange and cooperation. It also brings key opportunities to foreign companies that want to succeed in the Chinese market. Ericsson looks forward to presenting our advanced 5G connectivity technology at the event and working with more customers and ecosystem partners to drive 5G innovation.
A2 Despite the global economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the CIIE proves the resilience of China's economic development and the great demand of the Chinese market. The country has made impressive achievements in the communications technology field with the construction of 5G and is becoming a key driver for new features of future 5G. The CIIE is a platform for us to deepen exchanges and cooperation with China's communication industry builders. We will work with industry partners to build a "better 5G network" that delivers value for all users.
A3 As the world's second-largest economy, China has long been a key driver for the world economy and has made important contributions to the development and standardization of global communication technologies.
Many of Ericsson's technology and solutions deployments across the world are incubated in China. China is one of Ericsson's largest markets, and we aim to make greater contributions to the communications industry's development by bringing in the latest global technologies and best practices while innovating with our Chinese partners for solutions to share with the world.
A4 China had 2.22 million 5G base stations by the end of September. As an essential digital infrastructure, 5G plays a key role in supporting network connectivity, intelligence and other key technologies.
In this regard, Ericsson will have more opportunities to work with Chinese partners in promoting the development and application of communication technologies by empowering innovation and improving the industrial ecosystem while serving users as well as driving sustainable development with advanced products.
A5 China's steadfast commitment to expanding its opening-up has further strengthened our faith in extending and deepening our partnerships in China. Ericsson has always considered China to be pivotal — both as a market and a development and production base.
We believe that the Chinese government will develop more measures to create a better business environment in the process of higher-level opening-up, in terms of market access policies, formulating rules and standards, intellectual rights protection and sustainability.
Tetsuro Homma, executive vice-president of Panasonic Holdings Corp. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
A1 Panasonic regards the CIIE as a strategic global exhibition and an important platform for communication with the world. To share the opportunities, we look forward to showcasing Panasonic's products, technologies and solutions in the environmental business field through the CIIE, and boosting exchanges with the government and other enterprises.
The CIIE, which is held as scheduled, shows China’s determination and willingness to open up further to the outside world and increases our confidence to participate in the exhibition
A2 The resilience of China's economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic is obvious to all and it plays a positive role in promoting the rebound of the global economy. The CIIE, which is held as scheduled, shows China's determination and willingness to open up further to the outside world and increases our confidence to participate in the exhibition.
A3 China is gradually transforming into a country with abundant consumption and strong engineering and innovation capabilities while maintaining its position as a world-leading manufacturing country. The country has a huge domestic market, a complete system of industrial chains and supply chains, and a strong ability to accept new technologies, which offers great potential for economic development.
A4 China has put forward dual carbon goals. Developing green and innovative products and building green industrial chains are crucial to accelerating the pace of low-carbon transformation. With the slogan of "Panasonic Green Impact", our company is leveraging its product and technology strengths in environmental protection to contribute to carbon neutrality.
A5 From the Foreign Investment Law and the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) to other opening-up policies, Panasonic has really felt that China's business environment has been continuously optimized. As China pursues high-quality development, in the future, we will strengthen our cooperation with outstanding Chinese and foreign companies and enhance our localization level to achieve win-win growth.