China still in favor with foreign investors

SHANGHAI: China remains a favorable destination for foreign investment amid the global economic downturn, a well-known investment banker and a major sponsor of Shanghai World Expo pavilion believe.

During his recent visit to Shanghai, Duncan L. Niederauer, CEO of NYSE Euronext hardly mentioned the phrase "financial crisis" that had been most frequently repeated among economies around the globe over the past year.

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The phrase he most favored was "the international board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE)". In mid May, the Shanghai government said that it would permit foreign companies to list on the city bourse "at the right time" in a bid to accelerate the process of turning the city into an international financial center, like New York and London, by 2020.

The NYSE Euronext is working with the China Securities Regulatory Commission to discuss which is the right shape or structure for the listing, according to Niederauer.

If the idea, launch of an international board for SSE, was materialized, it would be "successful", he believed, since Renminbi, the Chinese currency, was yet to be fully convertible, and such a juncture between the Chinese and international capital markets would be necessary. Moreover, China's institutional and individual investors were financially powerful, which would ensure the prosperity of the international board, he added.

The NYSE Eorunext estimated that the SSE international board would be kicked off during next year's World Expo in Shanghai, for which the US pavilion has received financial support from the world's largest stock exchange.

The US-based Cisco has also eyed Chinese market's outstanding performance in the global economic downturn. To grasp the opportunity in the Chinese market, the world's leading network and telecom equipment supplier has signed a contract with the Expo organizer to build a nearly 2,000-square-meter corporate pavilion at a cost of $10 million in the Expo park.

The pavilion, with the theme of "Smart plus Connected Life", will showcase how to make transport, security, medication, utilities and government affairs easier by advanced network technology.

Chen Chao, who is in charge of management over corporate pavilions with the Shanghai World Expo Coordination Bureau, told Xinhua Friday that Cisco had decided to abandon the pavilion project because of the financial crisis before it resuscitated the idea. The change was encouraged by the rapid recovery of the Chinese economy, Chen added.

"I think the decision will benefit both sides. Cisco's building an Expo corporate pavilion is in conformity with its own development strategy in China. Meanwhile, the move will be conducive to illustrating the theme of the World Expo, which has begun to function as a cohesion mechanism for investors' confidence," Chen commented.

As a matter of fact, crisis effect has daunted offshore investment worldwide, and China was no exception.

In the first three quarters, China actually used 63.766 billion US dollars in foreign direct investment (FDI), a decline of 14.26 percent from the same period of last year. Shanghai recorded a 23.4 percent decrease in contractual foreign capital for the nine-month period.

Thanks to the 586-billion-US dollar stimulus package China initiated a year ago and Shanghai's industrial upgrading efforts, however, the FDI lackluster has begun to be eased more or less.

Data from the Ministry of Commerce showed that in September, China actually used $7.899 billion in foreign capital, up 18.93 percent over the same month a year earlier.

According to the municipal commerce commission, Shanghai has since July witnessed a month-on-month growth in contractual FDI for three consecutive months, as new areas for foreign investment have been explored.

Peter Loescher, chairman and CEO of the Germany-based Siemens, believed the process of Chinese economy turning "green" would provide a wonderful opportunity for many foreign companies. In a few years to come, Siemens would increase technical and financial input in China in such areas of environmental protection, clean energy and construction of mega cities, he noted.

Hirosuke Matsueda, chairman of Taiyo Nippon Sanso, told Xinhua that the Japanese industrial air supplier sensed China's vitality in the economic downturn and decided to increase investment in China, which the company believed would become a leading market for household medical air, which boasted the fastest growth in the world.

According to findings of a survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, 74 percent of the 400-plus US-funded companies in China made profits last year, 91 percent of them chose to expand business in the country, and only 2 percent canceled investment projects there.