According to the data of absorbing foreign investment in the first half of this year released by the Ministry of Commerce, 5565 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in June this year, an increase of 92.3% year-on-year, and 100.7 billion yuan of foreign investment was actually used, an increase of 0.3% year-on-year. It can be seen from this that the growth rate of new foreign-funded enterprises is very large, but the growth rate of the actual amount of foreign investment is relatively small. What is the reason for this phenomenon? In response, the reporter of Economic Daily interviewed relevant experts in the field of foreign trade.
In an interview, Professor Sang Baichuan, Dean of the Institute of International Economy, said that in the first half of this year, the number of newly established foreign-funded enterprises increased significantly, and the contractual foreign investment also increased rapidly. This reflects the continuous improvement of the environment for foreign investment in China, which still has a strong attraction for foreign investment. Many multinational companies value the huge investment opportunities brought by China's transformation and upgrading, especially the upgrading of consumption structure and the expansion of market scale.
Professor Sang explained that the difference between the growth rate of the actual use of foreign capital and that of the newly increased foreign-funded enterprises is actually the difference between the actual use of foreign capital and the contractual foreign capital, which is a very normal phenomenon.
Generally speaking, after signing the investment contract, it will also involve the issue of subsequent funds in place. The increase of contractual foreign investment means that in the future, foreign investment will increase in the process of performing the contract, and the actual use of foreign investment will also increase. Therefore, from the perspective of trend, contractual foreign investment is generally a leading information, which indicates that the growth of actual use of foreign investment in the future also has great potential. Generally speaking, the newly established foreign-funded enterprises have signed investment contracts, but the foreign investment funds will not be in place at the same time, which results in the phenomenon of rapid growth of contractual foreign investment and slow growth of actual utilization of foreign investment.
In addition, the growth rate of foreign investment absorption in June this year is lower than that in the first half of this year, which is actually mainly due to the large decline of RMB exchange rate in June. In the process of RMB exchange rate falling, the actual amount of foreign investment will slow down, which is a kind of risk avoidance behavior of enterprises. If the appreciation of RMB occurs, the actual use of foreign capital in place rate will also accelerate.
Professor Sang said that when the government makes more efforts to attract investment and local governments pay more attention to foreign investment, more contract projects will be signed. However, it is not ruled out that after signing the contract, there is still the possibility that individual enterprises fail to perform the contract.
Attached original link: http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2018-07/14/content_5306374.htm
