On March 13, local time, a roadshow meeting of 2017 Fortune Global Forum jointly hosted by Guangzhou municipal government and Fortune magazine was held in New York, USA.
Cai Chaolin, Vice Mayor of Guangzhou, makes a keynote speech at the roadshow meeting of 2017 Fortune Global Forum in New York, USA on March 13.
At the meeting, Cai Chaolin, Vice Mayor of Guangzhou, presented the city’s development concept toward openness and innovation, while the participants, including top executives of Fortune magazine and the representatives from American companies including FedEx and GE and local Guangzhou enterprises, explored around the topic “how to succeed in China as a multinational”.
As learned, this is the first time that the roadshow meeting of 2017 Fortune Global Forum took place at the economic heart of the USA and had direct dialogue with the Fortune Global 500 companies. Present at the meeting were also Alan Murray, Chief Content Officer of Time Inc. and Editor-in-Chief of Fortune and Consul General Zhang Qiyue from the Consulate-General of PRC in New York.
Living examples of Guangzhou efficiency and charm
Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alan Murray (L) and FedEx CEO Fred Smith has a dialogue at the roadshow meeting of 2017 Fortune Global Forum in New York, USA on March 13.
The meeting began with a dialogue between Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alan Murray and FedEx CEO Fred Smith, then the participants had a discussion on “how to succeed in China as a multinational”. As a key part of the meeting, Vice Mayor Cai Chaolin made a keynote speech and a city promotion film of Guangzhou was screened.
“It only took us 50 days to reach the agreement; 60 days later, we have the groundbreaking of the factory”. In his speech, Cai took Foxconn as a living example to illustrate the “Guangzhou determination” which drew the great interests of the participants. On March 1, 2017, Guangzhou’s Zengcheng District witnessed the groundbreaking ceremony of Foxconn 10.5-G 8K Displays Eco-Park, where Foxconn Founder and CEO Terry Gou highly appraised the city’s efficiency, charm and determination.
“We have many examples like this, such as Cisco’s Smart City, Microsoft Cloud and Mobile Technology Incubation Program, Siemens Smart Eco Technology Demonstration Center, Google’s AdWords Experience Center, and LG Crystal Displays project.” Cai said Guangzhou is home to tens of thousands of international companies, including 288 Fortune Global 500 companies. These business leaders have foreseen the infinite potential and promising future of the city.
Vice Mayor of Guangzhou Cai Chaolin (R2), Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alan Murray (L2), and Consul General Zhang Qiyue (R1) from the Consulate-General of PRC in New York have a conversation before the roadshow meeting.
“China has changed a lot. It will become more open and innovative. Cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen are very good examples.” Consul General Zhang Qiyue encouraged the participating American representatives to have more in-depth communications with their Chinese counterparts. She also invited all participants to attend the Fortune Global Forum to be held in Guangzhou in early December this year.
Guangzhou: Witness of Sino-US trade tie
At the meeting, leading American companies such as FedEx and McKinsey also sought to better spot the trade cooperation opportunities between China and the United States. FedEx CEO Fred Smith told the reporter that FedEx has set up an Asian-Pacific Logistic Center in Guangzhou. Many FedEx’s clients enter China via this center which now has become a strategic hub. He said China is transforming from export-oriented to consumption-driven development, and could open up more sectors, such as transportation.
Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alan Murray delivers a speech at the roadshow meeting.
Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alan Murray said dialogue is beneficial against the backdrop of increasing trade protectionism, and that is why the Fortune Global Forum is held. “Guangzhou holds an important stance in the global free trade system,” he said it is quite difficult to find a comparable city in the world that kept doing foreign trade during such a long historical period, and this is an important consideration in selecting Guangzhou as the host city for the Forum. “We believe the Forum will be a great success with the great support from Guangzhou Government.”
Guangzhou has a close trade tie with the United States. The statistics of Guangzhou Municipal Commission of Commerce shows that, by the end of January 2017, Guangzhou has approved the establishment of 992 companies of direct American investment with the actually utilized foreign investment amounting to 1,554.24 million USD. A single month of January 2017 witnessed the establishment of five new American investment enterprises. On the other hand, Guangzhou has invested to set up 166 enterprises (institutions) cumulatively in the United States, with an agreed investment amount of 651.5 million USD from the Chinese side.
Guangzhou Development District (GDD) is the hotbed for and has the most concentrated American investment enterprises in south China. It is home to American investment enterprises from various sectors, including the refined chemistry, food & beverage, electronics & information and biomedicine. As per statistics, GDD recorded a total of approximately 4 billion USD investment for the American investment enterprises, with an actually utilized foreign investment of 167 million USD for more than 250 projects that generate revenues of nearly 100 billion RMB (14.46 billion USD).
Vice Mayor of Guangzhou Cai Chaolin (L1) talks with FedEx CEO Fred Smith (R1) before the roadshow meeting.
As per the District officials, more and more American investment enterprises are localizing their R&D functions to develop products that cater for the local customer demands. In fact, the American investment enterprises have the highest localization rate in terms of senor management among all the foreign investment enterprises.
As the home port of China’s Maritime Silk Road and one of the birthplaces of the country’s modern finance, Guangzhou has been a financial leader in Guangdong Province for a long period of time, and forms an important part of China’s financial landscape. The figures from Guangzhou Bureau of Finance show that Guangzhou had an incremental value of 180 billion RMB in financial sector in 2016, a year-on-year growth of 11% and taking up 9.2% of GDP. With 4.75 trillions of RMB and foreign currency deposit balance and 2.97 trillions of RMB loan balance, Guangzhou ranked the fourth among the major Chinese cities.
Enterprise: Roadshow meeting is a platform of extensive international influence
“Guangzhou is the forerunner in implementing China’s opening up and reform policies, while our people believe that action speaks louder than words. As a millennial capital of commerce and an important trade center, Guangzhou is a dynamic city of well-established economic strength, ranking only after Beijing and Shanghai, and is at an equivalent level with Hong Kong and Singapore.” Cai said that Guangzhou has topped Forbes China List of Best Cities for Business for five times; according to the recently released World Urbanization Prospect by the United Nations, Guangzhou is the fastest growing mega city in the world.
Guests at the roadshow meeting.
Ehang, Inc. is one of the Guangzhou enterprises present at the meeting. Its Vice President Lin Sihong told the reporter that the tremendous support from the government on technological innovation has been indispensable for the company’s robust growth in less than three years since its establishment. For example, the epic and Guinness-record-setting 1,000-drone light show on the Lantern Festival was also backed by the government. For this show, a coordination meeting among various government departments was held to require application for airspace approval in strict accordance with the low latitude flight regulations in China, while the formalities from application to final approval took merely less than 1 month.
Lin said that their presence at the previous promotion meeting in Hong Kong has brought clients, funding and resources for the company. They have received invitation from Astana Expo 2017 for a drone show. She hoped to set up communication with leading American companies through this promotion meeting. “We have office in the States, but our own channel is quite limited and would be much less efficient without the platform offered by the promotion meeting.”
Head of Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC), one of the representatives from local Guangzhou enterprises, said that Guangzhou has been vigorously improving the business environment toward the market-orientation, international standard, legal governance and convenience. Currently the city is stepping up the efforts in developing the international shipping hub and aviation hub, which would gradually facilitate the interaction of the multi-modal transportation such as air-railway and airport-seaport. With a constantly growing convergence effect and coverage, the city is building up an open business environment of international practices where GAC and its holding subsidiaries have achieved stable, healthy and sustaining development.
He added that the United States is the world’s second largest auto market which is relatively open with well-established market regulations and any quality car product can find its opportunity here. GAC’s presence at this meeting is a great opportunity to promote its increasingly internationalized brand name on this platform of extensive international influence.
