Beijing Municipal Leadership Liu Qi and Wang Qishan Face to Face with Chiefs of Multinational
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| 3/26/2004 12:33:27 Beijing Youth Daily Huaxia Times |
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¡°The 8th Municipal Leadership and Multinational Corporation Representatives Symposium¡± organized by the Municipal Committee and the Municipal Government had invited presidents of regional headquarters of over 20 multinational corporations, including Motorola, HP, Ericsson, Microsoft, and Philip etc., as well as chairmen and representatives of foreign chambers of commerce in Beijing, such as the American Chamber of Commerce, European Union Chamber of Commerce, Japanese Chamber of Commerce, Swiss Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and the China-Australia Chamber of Commerce. During the symposium, Party Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee Liu Qi, Mayor Wang Qishan, among other leaders, as well as the main persons-in-charges of the Beijing Municipal Development & Reform Committee, Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, Bureau of Commerce, and Investment and Promotion Bureau etc. had been present to listen to the opinions of the participants. Theme of this symposium was ¡°Optimize Development Environment, Promote further Progress of Multinational Corporation Regional Headquarters in Beijing¡±.
Mayor Wang Qishan Shows Keen Interests in the Financial Sector
Foreign investors Confirms Beijing as an International Financial Center
According to Xing Gongjie (ÐÒ¹«½Ü), Executive Director of the Montreal Bank of Canada (China Region): As an international metropolis, Beijing itself has already been a powerful reason to become an international financial center. Financial sector¡¯s contribution to Beijing¡¯s GDP has already exceeded 14%, and this may placed Beijing on the same par as Shanghai. Besides, Beijing has also its unparalleled advantages ¡¡C being very close to China¡¯s policy formulation and supervision unit.¡±
Xing added: ¡°Many colleagues from the overseas banking sector have expressed their hope that Beijing should be more eager and more active in becoming an international financial center. For this reason, we have a few suggestions: we hope that Beijing will become a bond center, to facilitate multinational corporations to consolidate their financial resources in Beijing; there is no doubt that Beijing is a decision center, but she should also play more agency roles at the same time, to make her an active financial center to create more financial models and financial tools.¡±
¡°We hope that the support to its being a financial center extended by the Beijing Municipal Government should be a kind of conducive, consistent, and predictable one. To the financial sector, predictability is very important. In addition, in the financial sector, the most important is talent. I hope I can see that the Municipal Government can grant us more preferential and incentive policies in attracting talents.¡±
On the other hand, GE (General Electric Co.) (China) Vice President Sun Jiyuan volunteered: ¡°our company is the world largest non-banking financial institution. Last year, non-banking financial revenue of our company had reached about a hundred million or so. But, in China, we have almost no revenue at all. We therefore are very much willing to cooperate with Beijing Municipal Government in this regard.¡±
24 multinational corporations have their regional headquarters located in Beijing
Talent and investment environment have become the focus of attention
According to latest information from the State Ministry of Commerce, there are currently 24 multinational corporations having their regional headquarters located in Beijing. Fostering the headquarters economy for now has become an important focus of economic efforts of the Beijing Municipal Government.
In his speech, Motorola Corporation Senior Vice President Gao Ruibin made two suggestions: first, he hopes Beijing Municipal Government can compare some of the preferential policies of various countries, to ensure that the effort for headquarters economic development in Beijing will be more attractive; second, he hopes that in terms of talent attraction, the various kinds of incentive policies of Beijing Municipal Government can be implemented as soon as possible. He stressed: ¡°Motorola Corporation has now already over 900 R & D personnel in Beijing, and we will continue to expand our business in China. We hope that we can participate in some key projects of the Beijing Municipal Government.¡±
Ericsson (China) Co., Ltd. Vice President Xi Jianmin came from Australia. According to him: ¡°Ericsson (China) Co., Ltd. is now actively preparing to set up a regional headquarters in Beijing. We have now 4 sole investment enterprises and 10 joint venture enterprises. Business export of the company in China is over RMB 20 billion a year. Besides, we also supply 1/3 of the global market of communication infrastructure facilities, and also the largest mobile communication infrastructure facility supplier in China.¡±
On the other hand, he also poured out his worries: first of all, we need a piece of land to construct our regional headquarters. Presently, we are applying for this piece of land from the Beijing Municipal Government for construction of our regional headquarters and relevant preferential policies; at the same time, we are also applying for our regional headquarters qualifications from the Ministry of Commerce.
In addition, leaders from companies, such as Toshiba, Nestle SA etc., have also offered their opinions and suggestions with regard to issues concerning talent attraction, improvement of the traffic system and enhancement of the traffic ethical standard, establishment of the system of good faith, export rebate policies, as well as that urban management requires advanced way of thinking etc. The reporter had noticed that there were 5 enterprises, including the Capital Land Housing Group of Singapore etc., which have expressed their intention to set up their regional headquarters in Beijing.
¡¡¡¡Wang Qishan commented that, the problems raised by representatives of the various multinational corporations involved extensive issues, from the state laws, rules and regulations, and polices, to specific government office departments and officers. All these issues deserve better studies and solutions. He pointed out that China is currently in a stage of high economic growth from adequate food and clothing to a relatively comfortable standard of living. Therefore, the coming two decades will be a period of rare development and opportunity. As the Capital of China, Beijing has its unique advantages in economic decisions and information platform.
¡¡¡¡With respect to problems raised by representatives of the over 20 multinational corporations, Mayor Wang Qishan clearly expressed that the Beijing Municipal Government will make meticulous improvement as long as these problems pertain to the operational sphere; those pertaining to the system sphere, the municipal government will speed up their reforms within the limit of laws and polices of the central government. He stressed that the coming four years of preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will be a period of enormous transformation for Beijing. The municipal government attaches great importance to the issue of setting up regional headquarters by multinational corporations in Beijing, and are also full of confidence in this regard.
¡¡¡¡On behalf of the Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government, Liu Qi expressed his gratefulness to the multinational corporations for their concern, support and help in Beijing¡¯s construction and development. He further stressed that Beijing Municipal Government will carry out the overall urban planning and revision, adopt the decentralization, integration and decomposition methods to further decentralized the urban functions, so as to expand new spaces for development of the capital. Beijing Municipal Government will further deepen its reform, establish a management system conforming to requirements of the socialistic market economic system, promote government functional transfer to social management and public services, continually optimize its development environment, lessen administrative examination and approval items, enhance government department efficiency in handling of affairs, to ensure that government services will be more standardized and effective, so as to create a first-class development environment for the coming of foreign-invested enterprises in Beijing.
¡¡¡¡Liu Qi commented that: ¡°Beijing is making her utmost efforts in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. We will seize tightly the opportunity brought about by the staging of the Olympic Games to accelerate development of the various undertakings of Beijing Municipal Government. In April this year, Beijing will organize an Olympic Games Economic Recommendation and Promotion Conference, to recommend and promote all fields and projects capable of investment involved in the Olympic Games to all interested investors. The Olympic economy has brought about endless business opportunities for both domestic and overseas enterprises, and it will drive rapid growth of the Beijing Economy and faster urban construction development. We hope all multinational corporations will actively participate in the Olympic economy, make due contributions for the success of the Beijing Olympic Games, at the same time, achieve much greater development of their own business. We believe that investment and development in Beijing will be a choice of strategic significance. Beijing on her own part, will create a much better environment for development with a more open embrace, enthusiastic attitude, excellent environment, high-quality service, and standardized working orientation, to welcome more and more multinational corporations to seek investment and development in Beijing.
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