Year-ender: How multinational execs view China's economy in 2020

1. How do you view China's economic performance in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic?

China has shown to the world the resiliency of its economy. China is the first nation to not only contain the pandemic and but also launch a series of initiatives to restore its dynamic market. Today, we are seeing various positive signs from different industries, and the business activities.

2. How do you evaluate the Chinese government's efforts in epidemic prevention and control?

We would all recognize that China's response to the COVID-19 situation was really effective. The serious measures that were taken in the beginning followed up by systematic tracking, tracing, testing and treatment are truly innovative and effective. This is proof that with good policy and science together, we can manage through these difficult circumstances.

3. What are your comments on China's improvement of its business environment this year?

China has continuously advanced reforms and opening-up for the past years. We are seeing great progress on streamlined administration, improved regulatory environment, upgraded services by authorities, and faithfully implemented tax and fee reduction policies. The greatly shortened negative lists for foreign investment market access are also attractive to foreign investment.

This year, given the pandemic impact, the quick actions on allocating low interest loans and subsidies on venue rental are very efficient policies to help businesses recover.

We are also seeing many initiatives that not only benefit businesses to grow but also help to steer the industry to a high level of development. Taking Merck as an example, we are a global leader in life science R&D and manufacturing solutions, and we are actively involved in the COVID-19 vaccine-related development together with our partners in China on virus research, test kit development and the optimizing of technological process. This year, at the third CIIE, we signed a memorandum of understanding with our local partner in China, that Merck became the first international company to pilot the new custom clearance process. This will certainly benefit the life science industry and accelerate the development in China.

4. What are your expectations for China's further reform and opening-up?

As a leading science and technology company, we see three of our core businesses as a perfect match to China's dynamic market. Today, China is one of our strategic markets. The further reform and opening-up of the market will certainly build our confidence in the market.

5. How do you view your company and the industry's performance in China this year?

Overall Merck has had double-digit growth so far. And we've been able to do that because the three pillars of our business -- life science, healthcare and performance materials -- all contributed. While we were challenged by the pandemic situation, each one of those businesses was fundamental to recovering during the pandemic.

Our life science business was very much involved in vaccine-related development and benefited from the dynamic growth of the industry. In healthcare, we are supplying critical medicine to patients who need their chronic disease treatments. And of course in the electronics industry, we saw fast development in China, accelerated by the digital living, 5G, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and the recent launch of the new infrastructure investment plan, which are all driving the economic recovery in China. We can tribute to all of these initiatives.

6. Do you plan to deepen your company's footprint in China next year? If so, how?

We know the 14th Five-Year Plan is about to release, along with many other economic initiatives, and we believe China's ambitions to be a leading high-tech nation are attainable. And we are committed to playing an active role in this transformation.

We have been in China for 87 years. We are here to stay, invest and be even closer with our customers. We want to become a fully integrated part of the local ecosystem. We will continue to develop our partnerships with key players in China, enhance our capability across all three sectors, and continue our journey in seeking the best talent in the market.