[Gao Feng]: Dear friends, good morning everyone, welcome to the press conference of Qingdao Multinationals Summit. Attending are Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming and Vice Governor of Shandong Province Ren Airong. I am Gao Feng, the host of today's press conference, deputy director of the General Office of the Ministry of Commerce, and the spokesperson of the press.

Today, Vice Minister Qian Keming will introduce the background and related basic situation of the Qingdao Multinationals Summit. Vice Governor Ren Airong will introduce the preparations for the summit and the supporting fairs. After that, they will answer your questions. Next, Mr. Qian Keming will introduce the relevant situation.

[Qian Keming]: Dear friends from the media, good morning, I am very happy to join Vice Governor of Shandong Province Ms. Ren Airong in attending the press conference and exchanging information on the Qingdao Multinationals Summit. My introduction will be focused on the background and basic situation of the Summit.

I. The Qingdao Multinationals Summit is the implementation of President Xi Jinping's instructions on “running a conference to invigorate a city”, and is held against the background of the effect of continuing to enlarge the SCO Qingdao Summit.

In June 2018, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit was successfully held in Qingdao. After the meeting, President Xi Jinping gave important instructions. The SCO Qingdao Summit was very successful, and Shandong Province, especially Qingdao, made great contributions. The holding of the Shanghai Cooperaton Organization Summit has brought new opportunities for the development of Qingdao and Shandong. It is hoped they can sum up the useful experience of “running a meeting to invigorate a city”, promoting good practices and work style, and amplifying the effect of the meeting, so that all the work can escalate to a new level.

In order to implement the spirit of President Xi Jinping's important instructions and approved by the State Council, the Ministry of Commerce and the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government consulted together and reached the agreement that they will take the successful holding of the Qingdao Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an opportunity to hold the Qingdao Multinationals Summit at the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Holding the summit aims to declare China's firm determination on opening up, focuses on the development of multinational corporations and the cooperation between multinational corporations and China, continues to amplify the effect of running conferences, and creates a new platform for China's expansion and opening up.

II. Qingdao Multinationals Summit is an important achievement of the cooperation mechanism between the Ministry of Commerce and Shandong Province. The two sides have made careful preparations and arrangements.

The Ministry of Commerce attaches great importance to the holding of the summit, regarding it as an important content of the cooperation mechanism between the Ministry of Commerce and Shandong Province, and will review the overall plan of the summit. Comrade Ren Airong and I will jointly serve as the executive directors of the summit organizing committee. The role of MOFCOM Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation will be clarified as the undertaker and the main comrades in charge of the 12 departments of the Ministry of Commerce will be the members of the organizing committee. The Ministry of Commerce will provide support in setting up summit topics, inviting leaders of international organizations and multinational corporations to participate in the conference, news and publicity. MOFCOM will also hold a private meeting themed on the implementation of the Foreign Investment Law at the summit to further specify the various systems and related supporting laws and regulations set up in the Foreign Investment Law. It will listen to the opinions of participating multinational companies.

III. Qingdao Multinationals Summit is a declaration campaign to promote the opening up to a new level, and will demonstrate China's determination and confidence in opening up and achieving mutual benefit.

President Xi Jinping stressed that China's opening up will not be closed and will only open wider and wider. It must actively participate in and promote the globalization process, develop a higher level of open economy, and promote the formation of a new pattern of comprehensive opening up. Holding the summit is a way to implement the measures of the Central Party Committee and the State Council to promote a new round of high-level opening up. The major guests of the summit are the leaders from Fortune 500 companies and leading companies of industries, differentiating from the other existing well-known forums home and abroad. The multinational corporations, who launch global strategic layout, are powerful promoters of economic globalization. They are essentially global companies. Multinational corporations play an important role in building a community with shared interests, shared responsibility and shared future for mankind, maintaining a multilateral economic system, and building a new and fair international relationship. Under the complicated and severe external environment, holding a summit specially for the leaders of multinational corporations is a declaration campaign to promote the formation of a comprehensive new opening pattern, which is conducive to strengthening the confidence of multinational corporations and achieving mutual benefit and cooperation with China.

Qian Keming: IV. Qingdao Multinationals Summit constructs a platform for the common consultations and win-win results of multinationals and China. In particular, it will broaden the channel of communication between local governments and multinationals.

At first, Qingdao Multinationals Summit will focus on the issues to the concern of the multinationals, and construct a dialogue platform for multinationals and China to have common consultations and gain win-win results. On December 18, 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping reiterated in his speech at the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up that China should stick to expanding opening up, play our role as a responsible major country, forge a new international cooperation platform together with the other parties and add new impetus to the common development of the world. At present, there have been about 490 Fortune Global 500 companies investing in China. At the same time, Chinese enterprises speed up their steps of globalization, and the number of Chinese enterprises in the list of Fortune 500 companies increases consecutively. In 2011, 11 Chinese enterprises were in the list, and in 2019, the number reached to 129.

As the department responsible for the national open economy, the Ministry of Commerce took the lead to hold Qingdao Multinationals Summit, in order to build a high level platform for multinationals to have conversations with government circle and academic circle, discussing important issues including the development, cooperation, responsibilities and governance of multinationals. On one hand, we can narrow the gap with the leaders of multinationals, strengthen exchanges, enhance mutual trust, build consensus and expand cooperation; on the other hand, through Qingdao Declaration of Leaders of Multinationals, we could make Chinese voice heard on major and hot issues to the concern of multinationals.

Secondly, Qingdao Multinationals Summit contributes to broadening exchanging and cooperation channels between provinces, municipalities and multinationals. Although Qingdao Multinationals Summit is held in Qingdao, it focuses on national opening up, and serves all the provinces and cities in the country. When gathering the leaders of well-known global multinationals, the summit opens to the enterprises all over China, and invites part of provinces and cities to attend the summit as the guests of honor, so as to carry out practical cooperation and communications, and build mechanical exchanging platform for local governments to attract high quality investment and introduce talents.

Over China’s 40-year reform and opening up, as important participants, witnesses, contributors and beneficiaries, multinationals have played an indispensable role. China’s government pays great attention to the reciprocal cooperation with multinationals, and attaches importance to listening to the voice of multinationals. In the future, China will not change its policy direction that encourages utilization of foreign investment, and China will also provide more investment opportunities to multinationals, and create a more stable, equitable, transparent and foreseeable investment environment.

Thank you!

Gao Feng: Mr. Qian Keming, thank you for your introduction of. Next, Let’s welcome Mm. Ren Airong to introduce related situations.

Ren Airong: Dear Friends from the media, good morning. I am very glad to take part in the press conference today together with Vice Minister Qian Keming. At first, let me, on behalf of the people’s government of Shandong province, convey my sincere gratitude, to the Ministry of Commerce for supporting the holding of Qingdao Multinationals Summit, and to the friends from the media for their concern and support for Shandong’s economic and social development.

Qingdao Multinationals Summit will be held on October 19-20 in Qingdao, Shandong province, during which the “2019 New Growth Drivers•Qingdao Fair” will also be held. In June last year, General Secretary Xi Jinping made an inspection in Shandong and required that Shandong should actively integrate into the overall situation of opening up, promote the level of opening up, expand high quality investment attraction, integrate into the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative deeply, and make Shandong a new highland of opening up. The provincial party committee and the people’s government of Shandong province attach great attention to the holding of the summit and the fair, and make this summit an important move to implement the important instruction and the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping. Shandong province is sparing no efforts to prepare for the summit. Let me take this opportunity to introduce the related situation.

I. Goal, Orientation and Main Contents of the Summit

The summit adheres to international mindset and the concept of opening up, has its foothold in Shandong province, faces the whole world and serves the whole country. The summit’s goals are to forge a perpetual international summit which is international, institutional and branded, and position the summit as a high-end platform that focuses on multinational issues, spreads voices of multinationals, shares experience of multinationals and links the resources of multinationals.

The main contents of the summit include: the opening ceremony, close-door meetings, parallel panels, roadshows of multinationals, activities of guest provinces (municipalities), industrial roadshows, roadshows of cities and supporting fairs. The summit is supposed to issue Qingdao Declaration of the Multinational Leaders and the Report on the 40 Years’ Investment in China of the Multinationals.

CCTV: Minister Qian, what is the consideration for holding the Summit amidst China-US trade tensions? What are the topics to be covered? What is the rationale for the choice of topics?

Minister Qian: Regarding the key consideration for holding the Summit, as an economic powerhouse on the east coast, Shandong has drawn lots of international capital and scored a phenomenal success in FDI utilization. In particular, as we all know, many multinationals have facilities or branches in Shandong. In July 2018, following a successful SCO Summit in Qingdao, President Xi Jinping gave the important instruction and comment, as I shared with you just now, that the useful experience of ‘vitalizing a city with a successful meeting’ should be summarized to promote good practices and work style and magnify the effect. Abiding by President Xi’s instruction, this meeting aims to vitalize the city through its success and continue to amplify the effect of the SCO Summit.

The topics under consideration include four aspects. First, Multinationals and China’s New Era aims to reflect on multinationals’ contributions to and benefits from China’s four-decade reform and opening-up, new opportunities facing MNCs in China’s fresh round of open-up and how China can better leverage the role of MNCs in the new era. Second, “Multinationals and International Economic Order” will look at the new changes in the international economic environment that underpins multinationals’ subsistence and development. The world has changed a lot since last year. MNCs’ investment distribution and global value chains, the coordination mechanism for cross-border investment and intellectual property protection, and customs clearance facilitation are also among the issues to be covered. Third, “Multinationals and Business Model Innovation” will explore multinationals’ business model innovation to adapt to global economic restructuring and the new normal of the Chinese economy, along with multinationals’ branding strategy and their role in the digital economy and consumption upgrade. The fourth topic is “Multinationals and Local Economic Development”. The Summit will set up a platform to promote the cooperation between Chinese localities and multinationals. Hence the topic to address the practical issues in multinationals’ cooperation with local governments.

As the host, Shandong also proposes issues such as its comprehensive demonstration zone for dynamics shift and demonstration zone for SCO local-level economic and trade cooperation as major national development strategies and local–level cooperation under the China-Japan-ROK FTA framework, among others, to explore new opportunities for win-win cooperation with multinationals. Thank you.

SDTV: For Governor Ren, the Qingdao Multinationals Summit is the most important event for Shandong this year. How significant will it be for the quality development of the province and its bid to create a new high ground for open-up?

Ren Airong: We pay high attention to the hosting of the Qingdao Multinationals Summit, which is of great significance for Shandong in three ways.

First, the hosting of the event is a major move on Shandong’s part to actively integrate in the national open-up strategy. Multinationals are a leading force for economic globalization and cross-border investment. Hosting the summit will demonstrate China’s resolve to open up and is a significant measure in materializing the fresh round of open-up launched by the CPC Central and the State Council. Approved by the State Council, the Summit will focus on issues related to multinationals and be a new platform for open-up for multinationals to find a new voice, share experience and connect resources. Shandong has actively involved itself in holding the premium event to better serve the national open-up strategy and further integrate into the national strategy.

Second, hosting the Summit is a key step to carry out President Xi Jinping’s instruction to build Shandong into a new high ground for open-up. Over the past forty years of reform and open-up, multinationals have played an active role in Shandong’s development, making huge contributions while securing self-development. For Shandong to develop a new high ground for open-up, it must continue to value and leverage the role of multinationals. The Summit provides a rare opportunity for the province’s connection and cooperation with multinationals.

Third, to host the Summit is also a significant move for Shandong to shift to new dynamics. In a certain sense, multinationals represent and point to the new dynamics, while Shandong is advancing the key drive of gearshift. The Summit offers an excellent opportunity for us to attract investment and talent. So its success will be of extraordinary significance for Shandong. Thank you.

China News Service: Minister Qian, you just shared the considerations for the Summit in a very detailed manner. What measures will China take to better meet the requests of the multinationals investing and operating in China?

Qian Keming: As Governor Ren said just now, the Qingdao Multinationals Summit is a podium to highlight China’s resolve for open-up, a stage to showcase multinationals’ investment projects in China, and a platform to forge consensuses of the Chinese government and multinationals. To better address the multinationals’ requests for investing and operating in China, the Chinese government will work in the following areas moving forward. We’ll continue to deepen the reform to streamline administration and delegate power, strengthen regulation, and optimize services, and build high-standard institutional frameworks for investment and trade liberalization and facilitation. As you may know, the next round of high-level open-up will shift its focus to rules and institutions from factors and the flow of goods, and therefore be more profound, comprehensive, fair, and inclusive. So high-standard institutional frameworks for investment and trade liberalization and facilitation need to be put in place to ensure the lawful rights and interests of foreign investors, equal treatment for all market players, including domestic and foreign investors, and big, medium, small and micro enterprises, and a level playing field. Thank you.

Qingdao Daily: The Multinationals Summit landing in Qingdao permanently demonstrates the importance attached by MOFCOM and Shandong to the city. Vice Governor Ren, what new opportunities will the Summit bring to Qingdao?

Ren: As the permanent host city of the Multinationals Summit, Qingdao will embrace significant opportunities of development in three aspects.

First, the Multinationals Summit will inject sustained impetus into the city’s effort to implement General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instruction of bolstering cities’ development through hosting international events. Qingdao is moving faster to build an open, modern, vibrant, and cosmopolitan metropolis. Hosting the Qingdao Multinationals Summit on a regular basis will earn Qingdao international fame as the home city of a permanent international flagship forum. This will further translate into growth drivers of the ongoing effort to build Qingdao into an international city.

Second, the Multinationals Summit will bring Qingdao high-end international resources to participate in Belt and Road Initiative. The Multinationals Summit will better leverage Qingdao’s advantage as a node of the new Eurasian Land Bridge and a strategic hub of maritime cooperation under the BRI. It will also give full play to the city’s role in shaping the opening up landscape by connecting east and west, land and sea.

Third, the Multinationals Summit will open up new channels and networks for attracting investment, talents and resources. According to overall planning of this year’s Multinationals Summit, Qingdao will stage a series of events including road shows, a gala dinner, Haier Forum and city tours to give multinationals a full picture of the key industries, major enterprises and business environment of Qingdao, introduce the city’s development strategy, policies and cooperation projects, and facilitate accurate matching of businesses. As a permanent Forum, the Multinationals Forum will set up a multinationals research center as a standing organization under the Summit council in Qingdao, which will institutionalize cooperation networks with multinationals and well-known chambers of commerce and associations and explore new ways and models of industrial matching and project cooperation among multinationals. This will also present major opportunities for Qingdao. Thank you.

Economic Information Daily: The Qingdao Multinationals Summit provides an important platform of attracting investment of multinationals. So Vice Governor Ren, could you please introduce multinationals’ investment in Shandong and the main advantages and direction of Shandong in inviting FDI?

Ren: The CPC Shandong Provincial Committee and the People’s Government of Shandong set great store by the cooperation with multinationals. We have promulgated and implemented an action plan on deepening cooperation with the Fortune Global 500 and leading companies with a view to moving deeper with all-round cooperation with multinationals. By the first half of this year, 216 among the top 500 multinationals had invested in more than 750 projects in such sectors as heavy trucks, sedans, engineering machines, shipbuilding, and IT, which play an important role in upgrading industry in Shandong.

For example, Shandong’s automobile industry has been strengthened by investment from MAN SE, Volkswagen, General Motors, Hyundai and other top car makers. Entry of Komatsu, Caterpillar, Volvo and Doosan also gives Shandong an edge in engineering equipment. In modern financial sector, Munich Re, Intesa Sanpaolo, Mitsubishi Bank, Mizuho Bank and other financial institutions are expanding investment in Shandong, which unleash new vitality for Shandong’s industrial development.

Shandong has great appeal for foreign investors. As a coastal province at the frontline of opening up in eastern China, Shandong boasts great economic strength, rapidly growing new economy and a huge market. Shandong’s advantages can be summarized in following aspects.

First, Shandong has a remarkable geographical advantage. Adjacent to Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei in the north and the Yangtze River Delta in the south with one sixth of China’s coastline, Shandong is a key hub along the new Eurasia Land Bridge Economic Corridor at the crossroads of the Belt and Road routes.

Second, Shandong has a fully-fledged industrial system, contributing to nearly 1/10 of GDP, 1/8 of industrial output, and 1/4 of agricultural export of the country. Shandong has long been the largest agricultural producer in China. Real economy is booming. It is home to over 9.8 million market entities, including many multinationals like Haier, Hisense, Tsingtao Beer, Inspur, Weiqiao, Ruyi and Shandong Heavy Industry Group.

Ren: Third, Shandong has a distinct edge in innovation. It has 21 state key laboratories, 303 S&T business incubators above the provincial level, over 8,900 hi-tech companies, 146 colleges and universities and 2.57 million undergraduates. Vocational education leads the whole country. Maritime technology is advanced in Shandong. Nearly half of maritime technology professionals in China are gathered here. The number of patents grew by 17.1% last year, which is a testimony to Shandong’s strong competitive edge in human resources and innovation.

Fourth, Shandong has an enabling investment environment. Shandong has over 6,000 km of highways and railways respectively, nine civil airports, and three major ports in Qingdao, Yantai and Rizhao with throughput of 400 million tons. The province aims to create a first-rate business environment in the world featuring a shorter list of items subject to review and approval, high efficiency, quality services and business satisfaction. It aims to ensure the review and approval for all the relevant items to be completed by one visit.

Fifth, Shandong has an enormous market. The resident population and registered population in our province both exceed 100 million with total GDP of 7.65 trillion yuan and per capita GDP of over 11,000 dollars. The total retail sales of consumer goods exceeded three trillion yuan. Import and export value stands at 1.93 trillion yuan, up by 7.7%. These advantages present favorable conditions for multinationals’ investment in Shandong.

We are promoting high quality economic development and building Shandong into a developed and modernized province in the new era through eight strategies including shifting growth drivers, rural revitalization, building maritime province, creating new heights of opening up, and major infrastructure construction in accordance with the important instructions by General Secretary Xi. In order to shift to new growth drivers more quickly, we successfully identified ten priority industries in 2018 including five emerging industries of next generation IT, new energy and new material, high-end equipment, modern maritime industry, health care, and five competitive industries including green chemical industry, modern efficient agriculture, culture and creative industry, flagship tourism and modern finance. Shandong strives to increase the share of the added value of the ten sectors in its GDP to about 60%. These will be priority sectors in our cooperation with multinationals. Thank you.

International Business Daily: Minister Qian, what progress has been made in improving business environment in China? What measures will be taken in the future?

Qian Keming: The Chinese government has been committed to improving business environment to attract foreign investment. In the past year, the Chinese government introduced a range of targeted policies and measures and has scored some progress in enhancing business environment.

First, we slashed the negative list, further opening up modern services sector, manufacturing and agricultural sectors, as well as financial sector. The manufacturing sector was already highly open, but was further opened up since last year.

Second, we voluntarily lowered tariffs, bringing the overall tariff to 7.5%, lower than most other developing countries and close to the level of openness in developed countries and markets.

Third, we held the first CIIE, enabling specialty and competitive products from other countries to access the Chinese market. The CIIE was the first of its kind, as other Expos mostly focus on export, while the CIIE focuses on import.

Fourth, we enacted the Foreign Investment Law, aiming to create a more stable, transparent, predictable and fair market environment.

Fifth, we started to build a group of pilot free trade zones, moved faster to build a free trade port in Hainan, and promoted innovation and upgrading of national-level economic and technology development zones. We also provided many platforms for opening-up, including the SCO and the Qingdao Multinationals Summit.

Qian Keming: If you look at the indicators, actualized FDI in 2018 was USD138.3 billion, ranking top of the developing countries. The 2019 Business Environment Report of the World Bank also suggested that China climbed from the 78th to 46th places in the ranking of business environment, a remarkable and substantive progress. China will continue to open up further and advance trade and investment facilitation and liberalization to build a competitive investment environment. We will focus on the following areas:

First, we will continue to promote investment liberalization on the basis of the negative list. We will fully implement the 2019 version of negative lists for foreign investment nationwide and in PFTZs at a faster pace.

Second, we will ease restriction to advance investment facilitation. We will deepen the reform to streamline administration, delegate powers, improve compliance oversight and enhance government service, in order to build a market-based, rules-based and world-class business environment.

Third, we will uphold the rule of law and step up investment protection, including foreign investment. We will enforce the Foreign Investment Law and put in place the mechanism for FIEs to lodge complaints and help them solve problems.

Fourth, we will improve services to promote foreign investment and continue to optimize the service system, so as to provide better services and opportunities to FIEs and foreign investors. Thank you.

Gao Feng: For the sake of time, we will take the last question.

JoongAng Ilbo: Governor Ren, could you please give an overview of the cooperation between Shandong and the ROK. You just said 31 Korean businesses will participate, and 2 of them are Fortune 500 companies. Could you be specific about the names?

Ren Airong: The ROK is the second largest source of foreign investment and the 4th largest trading partner of Shandong. Multinationals from the ROK are highly interested in this summit and are enthusiastic about participation. 31 Korean firms have confirmed their participation, including Fortune 500 companies like CJ and Hyundai. Shandong province pays close attention to the win-win cooperation with the ROK.

First, we have promoted investment cooperation in the top ten industries. Professional teams were organized to match businesses from the two sides. This year Governor Gong Zheng also visited the ROK with a government and business delegation, delivering tangible results.

Second, we have fully granted pre-establishment national treatment on the basis of the negative list, and expanded cooperation in healthcare, medical care, commerce, trade, logistics, energy conservation, culture and innovation.

Third, we have built the China-ROK industrial park in Yantai with a high standard and the demonstration zone for subnational cooperation between China and the ROK in Weihai. The twin park model and multi-ports model were explored in a creative way, bolstering cooperation in cross-border trade, customs clearance, and product certification, etc. Thank you.

Gao Feng: This is the end of the press conference. Thank you to the speakers and the journalists. Thank you.