Attracting and utilizing foreign investment has long been an important component of China’s basic national policy of opening up. Foreign capital plays a significant role in promoting economic development, advancing industrial upgrading, and enhancing global competitiveness.

Anhui province has always attached great importance to cooperation with foreign-invested enterprises and actively cultivated a favorable investment environment, attracting numerous foreign firms to settle here. From January to July this year, the province established 289 new foreign-invested enterprises, and actual utilized foreign investment reached 13 billion yuan, a year‑on‑year increase of 4.9%. Volkswagen, Unilever, Linde Gas… to date, investors from more than 110 countries and regions have set up over 5,000 enterprises in our province, making important contributions to our economic development, technological innovation and industrial upgrading.

To attract and utilize foreign investment with greater intensity is a systemic test concerning both openness mindset and openness capabilities. Across the province, efforts must be made in multiple areas such as investment attraction methods, industrial ecosystems, and the business environment, thereby building a comprehensive system for drawing foreign capital.

Make good use of platforms and build an openness matrix

From September 20 to 23, 2025, the World Manufacturing Convention was held in Hefei. A total of 659 international guests from 53 countries and regions attended the conference, the largest number of participating countries/regions and foreign guests in the convention’s history. During the event, matchmaking sessions for multinational companies, German firms, Japanese firms and others provided bridges for Anhui’s external exchanges and cooperation.

Promoting cooperation through openness and driving high‑level opening-up with platform thinking is the distinctive "playbook" our province has been developing for attracting foreign investment.

Beyond hosting the World Manufacturing Convention at the highest level, in recent years our province has focused on building a number of high‑level open platforms — including the "Haike Roundtable," the "Anhui Enterprises Goes Global" outbound initiative, the "Anhui Enterprises Goes Global" partner program, and the China (Anhui) Pilot Free Trade Zone — forming a matrix of high‑level opening-up that facilitates efficient flows and allocation of resources and factors.

How can platform effectiveness be maximized? Since the start of this year, some opening activities have adopted a "conference plus" approach by entering parks and enterprises to improve the precision of supply‑and‑demand matching. For example, in June, as part of the "Haike Roundtable," a China‑Germany intelligent manufacturing industry matchmaking meeting was held. During preparation, the provincial Department of Commerce and relevant park administrations compiled the cooperation needs of German companies coming to Anhui and the intentions of Anhui enterprises to cooperate with Germany. After the event, nearly 100 German company and institutional executives were invited to visit national economic and technological development zones in Hefei, Wuhu, Lu’an and Huainan. This pragmatic approach — turning "one event" into "a series of in‑depth visits" — effectively produced a batch of cooperation outcomes.

Seize opportunities and deepen industrial openness

The automotive and equipment manufacturing industries each exceed one trillion yuan, and the new materials and new energy/energy‑saving and environmental protection industries each exceed 500 billion yuan… Driven by technological innovation, Anhui is developing new quality productive forces and its emerging industries continue to grow, demonstrating a renewed attraction to foreign investment.

At a subforum of the 2025 World Manufacturing Convention on emerging industries and multinational company matchmaking, Noah Fraser, Senior Vice President of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said: "Anhui is strategically developing a series of cutting‑edge and emerging industries such as intelligent manufacturing, biopharmaceuticals, electric vehicles and renewable energy — areas where the U.S. business community can engage in deep cooperation."

The core of opening to the outside world is industrial openness, and the core of industrial openness is utilizing foreign investment.

As the nation’s sixth‑largest industrial province, our manufacturing scale, strength and competitiveness continue to rise. Consequently, the "fan" of industrial openness is spreading wider, and we are at an "opportunity window" for breakthroughs in both the quantity and quality of foreign investment utilization.

The accelerated development of emerging industries such as new‑generation information technology, new energy vehicles and intelligent connected vehicles provides abundant innovation application scenarios and creates substantial demand for production services. Production‑oriented service enterprises — in fields such as R&D and design, testing and certification, information technology and financial services — investing in Anhui will have boundless business opportunities. Localities across the province should focus on these industry sectors, actively connect with relevant foreign enterprises, expand cooperation projects and continuously increase the scale of foreign investment utilization.

Do the "additions and subtractions" well and optimize the open environment

Volkswagen (Anhui) Co., Ltd. went from signing to the first vehicle rolling off the line in just 18 months, creating an "Anhui speed" for multinational cooperation that remains widely admired in the industry.

The business environment is the lifeline of high‑quality development. Regarding foreign investment attraction, this means doing "subtraction" on foreign investment access restrictions while doing "addition" on services.

From comprehensively removing foreign investment access restrictions in the manufacturing sector to expanding opening in services such as telecommunications and healthcare, from improving foreign investment‑related laws and regulations to proactively engaging with high‑standard international economic and trade rules such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans‑Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA)… in recent years China has continuously reduced foreign investment access restrictions, further broadening the space for foreign enterprises to invest.

With changing conditions in foreign capital utilization and especially with ongoing industrial structural transformation, the paths, methods and pace for attracting foreign investment have also evolved and advanced.

Under current circumstances, attracting foreign capital requires not only optimizing the business environment but also creating a more convenient, friendly and inclusive work‑and‑life environment. Therefore, beyond doing access "subtractions" and service "additions," it is even more necessary for all levels and departments to actively interpret policy directions, act in step with the trend, and take initiative — the earlier you perceive developments and the faster you act, the more likely you are to become a "winner."

To make it easier for foreign nationals to live in Anhui, our province currently has established two schools for foreign children; several tertiary hospitals in the province have set up international medical departments to provide personalized diagnosis and treatment services. The Provincial Department of Commerce has compiled the "Guide for Foreign Businesspeople Working and Living in Anhui," covering aspects of life, work and entertainment, and it has been widely recognized by foreign entrepreneurs and foreign company employees.

Officials from the Provincial Department of Commerce stated that in the future the province will continue to improve services for foreign‑funded enterprises, further strengthen the foreign investment service guarantee system, and ensure that foreign companies receive national treatment in areas such as access to factors, qualification approvals, standards setting and government procurement. The province will build first‑class internationalized residential communities, gather more international medical and education resources, and provide higher‑quality international business and living environments for foreign investors in Anhui.

Source: Anhui Daily