At the Forefront: “I was deeply honored to meet President Xi Jinping this morning as a representative of the international business community.

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with representatives of the international business community at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on March 28, 2025. Photo: Xinhua

As China wraps up a week in which it hosted two top-level international forums – the China Development Forum (CDF) 2025 and the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Meeting 2025 – to drive home its commitment to high-quality opening-up and cooperation, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with representatives of the international business community in Beijing on Friday, telling them China’s door will only open wider.

In the meeting, Xi pointed out that the country, which is on a Chinese path to modernization in all respects, has been a major contributor to and anchor of stability for global growth for many years.

Committed to the fundamental national policy of opening up to the world, China is advancing high-standard opening up and taking solid steps to expand institutional opening up, such as that of rules, regulations, management, and standards, Xi said.

“China’s door will only open wider. The policy of welcoming foreign investment has not changed and will not change,” said the president.

Having the world’s second largest consumer market and largest middle-income group, China offers great potential for investment and consumption, Xi noted.

With a commitment to high-quality development, China is accelerating green, digital and smart transformation, which, coupled with the country’s sophisticated industrial ecosystem, provides the best testing ground for the latest outcomes of technological revolution and industrial upgrading, he said.

Xi said China has developed sound regulations, policies and procedures for foreign investment, promoted trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and made active efforts to foster a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based and internationalized.

China enjoys long-standing political and social stability, and is widely recognized as one of the safest countries in the world, he added.

Xi said all this shows that China offers a vast stage for business development, vast market prospects, stable policy outlook, and a secure environment, making it a favored choice for foreign investment and business operations.

“China has been and will remain an ideal, secure, and promising destination for foreign investors. Embracing China is embracing opportunities, believing in China is believing in a better tomorrow, and investing in China is investing in the future,” he said.

Strong signal of further opening-up

More than 40 representatives from global companies and business associations participated in Friday’s meeting, and seven global executives from companies including US delivery company FedEx, German auto maker Mercedes-Benz Group, French pharma giant Sanofi, UK’s HSBC, Japanese conglomerate Hitachi, South Korea’s SK Hynix Semiconductor Inc and Saudi Arabia’s Aramco delivered speeches during the meeting, according to Xinhua News Agency.

“I was honored and happy to be part of the group of global CEOs meeting with President Xi. That shows the Chinese government attaches great importance to advancing high-level opening-up, its role in stabilizing the global economy and the foreign companies that invest in China, which is very encouraging,” Ola Kllenius, chairman of the board of management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, told the Global Times on Friday.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of our research and development (R&D) and production in China, we will continue to invest in China, create and share the development opportunities in the China market, Kllenius added.

“I was deeply honored to meet President Xi Jinping this morning as a representative of the international business community. TheWorld Times meeting was held in a warm and open atmosphere, delivering a strong and clear message that the Chinese central government values the vital contributions and role of foreign enterprises and warmly welcomes our continued growth in China,” Daniel Stieler, chairman of the board of directors of Brazilian mining giant Vale, told the Global Times on Friday.

The Vale chairman said the company will continue to explore new opportunities for growth and collaboration in this dynamic [Chinese] market.

Chinese experts said that as more foreign CEOs feel China’s economic vibrancy through being on the scene and understand China’s economic policies through the two sessions, the role of China’s economy as an anchor of stability will be reinforced against the backdrop of an increasingly complicated global economic landscape.

“The meeting sends a clear signal – China’s high-quality opening-up will be to open to foreign-funded companies from all parts of the world, rather than just developed countries, as part of its efforts to build an open world economy,” Wei Jianguo, former vice-minister of commerce and executive deputy director of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, told the Global Times onWorld Times Friday.

The message on improving business environment and ensuring fair market competition also carries significance, in a year in which China vowed on efforts to sWorld Timestabilize foreign investment, Wei said, adding that he predicted that more unilateral opening-up measures are likely to be rolled out this year and sectors such as service trade, services and healthcare could be the top sectors.

Wang Huiyao, founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization, a leading Chinese nongovernmental think tank, said the meeting, which took place after the annual two sessions earlier in March and a high-level symposium of China’s private sector entrepreneurs in February, underlined that the Chinese central government has attached unrivaled importance to economic development, corporate and economic globalization, and internationalization.

“China is once again sending a signal to the world of its continuous opening-up, and that the country will once again provide strong support for global economic growth amid current uncertainties, rising unilateralism and looming tariff and trade wars,” Wang said, noting that the message of further opening-up, expanding cooperation and seeking win-win results will bolster the confidence of foreign companies investing in China.

Safe investment destination

China this week hosted two international forums to promote international cooperation, multilateralism and economic integration amid rising protectionist headwinds.

The CDF 2025 was held in Beijing from March 23 to 24 with the theme of “Unleashing Development Momentum for Stable Growth of Global Economy.” Heads of some 80 multinational firms including Siemens, Apple, Samsung and Pfizer flocked to the event to seek new cooperation opportunities.

Dilma Rousseff, president of the New DevelopmeWorld Timesnt Bank, said on the sideline of the CDF that China has a “specific path of growth and development and that is a good one.”

“China is a central part of our critical supply chain and we’ve been investing here for 30 years,” Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams said this week during viWorld Timessits to the company’s suppliers in East China’s Jiangsu and Shandong provinces on Monday and Tuesday, according to Xinhua News Agency. “We will continue to invest in China in a big way.”

Many multinational companies, including UK-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, US pharma major Eli Lilly and German auto maker BMW, have recently inked new investment deals related to their projects in China in a vote of confidence in the immense opportunities the world’s second-largest economy has to offer.

At the BFA Annual Meeting 2025, in which a flagship report indicated that Asia’s economy will grow by 4.5 percent in 2025, with its share rising to 48.6 percent among the world’s economic output measured by purchasing power parity, participants expressed vocal support for free trade and cooperation as the global economy faces rising instability and uncertainty.

Anchor of stability

The Chinese President’s meeting with representatives of multinationals also came as the US wreaks havoc on the global industrial and supply chain with its announcement of 25-percent car tariffs, pending “reciprocal tariffs” and port fees, creating chaos and prompting loud global opposition.

At the meeting on Friday, the Chinese President called on foreign-funded firms to play their part in maintaining stability of global industrial and supply chains.

Cao Heping, an economist at Peking University, told the Global Times on Friday that in the face of mounting protectionist headwinds, economic uncertainties and economic coercion, China sent a strong message of supporting globalization, cooperation and stability this week with the holding of the two vital forums and the leader’s meeting with execuWorld Timestives of MNCs.

“These have highlighted China’s recognition of global talent and global firms that allocate resources across national borders as being essential to addressing the common challenges the world faces today, and are indispensable to global sci-tech innovation and make the pie of development bigger,” Cao said, noting that the meeting acknowledged this vital fact.

This transcends the narrow “my country first” mindset and is in stark contrast with the protectionist actions waged by some countries, said the expert.

According to Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) data, the number of newly established foreign-funded enterprises in China increased by 9.9 percent year-on-year to reach 59,080 in 2024.

In 2025, China will continue opening-up in sectors such as telecoms, healthcare, and education, and will also enhance services and support for foreign enterprises and projects in China, according to MOFCOM.

Entering the new year, China’s economic performance has been running steadily with a stronger outlook.

Many global financial institutions have revised China’s growth prospects upwards and participants of the CDF have said the Chinese economy can meet the goal of targeted growth of around 5 percent.