Western China gradually becomes a new highland for China-EU economic and trade cooperation

"The company has invested in physical shopping malls in six areas of Chongqing. In the future, it will also introduce the world's first Dibao RFID real-time full-category product inventory counting robot here, and increase investment in smart retail innovation." Gao Rulin, general manager of Decathlon (Chongqing), is very satisfied with the company's development in Chongqing over the past six years and is full of confidence in the future.

Decathlon is a comprehensive sporting goods retailer from France. Its continuous expansion of investment in Chongqing is a microcosm of many EU companies' continued entry into the western Chinese market. In recent years, with the proposal of the "Belt and Road" initiative, western China has become a pan-European and pan-Asian "open hub" and a new market favored by many European companies. The economic and trade cooperation between the two sides has continued to deepen.

Statistics show that as of the end of February, Chongqing has newly established 350 foreign-invested enterprises from EU countries, absorbing US$2.225 billion in contracted foreign investment and US$3.561 billion in actual foreign investment, mainly involving manufacturing, leasing and business services, real estate, information transmission, software and information technology services, wholesale and retail, electricity, gas and water production and supply, and construction.

At the same time, 33 domestic entities in Chongqing have made non-financial investments in 31 EU companies, with actual investments of US$580 million, mainly in business services, software and information technology services, railway, shipbuilding, aerospace and other transportation equipment manufacturing, and other manufacturing industries.

Ma Xiaoli, vice chairman of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said that many member companies of the chamber of commerce have cooperated with western provinces and cities including Chongqing, and the local government also provided a lot of help to these companies during the epidemic last year, and the increasingly better business environment in this region has also made member companies more attractive.

In addition to direct investment, direct trade between the two sides has achieved rapid development in recent years. Li Kuiwen, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs of China and director of the Statistics and Analysis Department, said at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office earlier that in the first quarter, the import and export of foreign trade in central and western China was 1.5 trillion yuan, an increase of 45.1%, which was 15.9 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of China's foreign trade.

Statistical data from the western region also confirm this: Chongqing's foreign trade imports and exports to the EU also achieved a year-on-year growth of 38.6%, and the total import and export volume reached 38.92 billion yuan.

The rapid development of China-Europe trains has provided key logistics support for the deepening economic and trade exchanges between western China and the European Union. Over the past decade, more than 60 cities in China have successively opened China-Europe trains, with overseas stations covering major European cities, and a total of 33,000 trains have been launched.

Thomas, business manager of DIT station in Duisburg, Germany, said in an interview that many of the containers heading to China are consumer goods such as food and alcohol. He believes that Chinese customers can easily buy specialties from Europe, and European countries can also share China's market opportunities.

The continued growth of many foreign trade advantage industries in western China has further laid a solid foundation for good economic and trade exchanges between the two sides. Taking Chongqing as an example, the import and export of the electronic information industry, as a local foreign trade advantage industry, reached 466.8 billion yuan in 2020, an increase of 16.3% year-on-year, many of which were sold to Europe through China-Europe trains.

"Since 2014, ASUS Group has placed 85% of its global laptop orders in Chongqing for production. In addition to laptops, many products such as motherboards, graphics cards, wireless routers, etc. are also sold from Chongqing to European countries through the China-Europe Express." said Lu Hong, brand director of ASUS Computer Southwest Region.

Facing the future, Chinese and European companies and related practitioners are full of confidence. Ma Xiaoli said that the members of the Chamber of Commerce have set a "carbon neutrality" goal. European companies have experience, expertise, relevant technology and equipment to help achieve integrated applications. They only need to further strengthen their understanding of China and western China so that they can develop better.

Liu Haoyu, deputy director of Chongqing Customs, said: "In the future, we will benchmark against the international advanced level, continue to promote customs business reforms such as 'two-step declaration' and 'two-stage access', promote cross-border trade facilitation, and continue to strengthen supervision and optimize services, continue to optimize the port business environment, and promote Chongqing's higher level of opening up and high-quality development of foreign trade and foreign trade."

"The EU is now Chongqing's most important trading partner and source of investment. We welcome EU entrepreneurs to invest and start businesses in Chongqing, participate in Chongqing's various construction projects, and share Chongqing's development opportunities." Zhang Zhikui, director of the Chongqing Municipal Commission of Commerce, said.