On April 22, in Beijing, Huizhou, China, and Dallas, the United States, a high-profile "cloud start" ceremony was held simultaneously. The construction of this ExxonMobil Guangdong Huizhou Ethylene Project with a total investment of about US $ 10 billion was officially launched.
As the first major petrochemical project to be solely funded by US companies in China, the timing of its construction is worthy of attention. The world is currently in a special period of combating the epidemic. Due to the serious imbalance between supply and demand, international oil prices have recently fluctuated down in a huge fluctuation. Even on Monday (20th), an unprecedented "negative oil price" market appeared. Seriously hurt. ExxonMobil "opposes the trend" at this point of time and chooses generous and long-term investment in China, which is enough to see the firm confidence and optimistic expectations of this world-class petrochemical giant in China.
Where does this confidence and expectations come from? It comes from the "hard power" formed by China's perfect infrastructure and industrial supporting facilities, as well as the "soft power" of China's continuous expansion of opening up and the continuous optimization of its business environment. The ExxonMobil project took only a total of 18 months from project storage and planning to completion of approval and formal start of construction. In the face of the new Coronary Pneumonia epidemic, Guangdong Province made overall plans to promote the prevention and control of the epidemic and economic and social development, which ensured that the project started as scheduled and showed a surprising "China speed". And this is just a microcosm of China's higher level of opening up.
As ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said at the groundbreaking ceremony, in addition to infrastructure, new laws and regulations have further enhanced the competitiveness of the Chinese economy, "all of which have created an environment, Enable ExxonMobil to continue our strategic long-term investment (in China). "
The new laws and regulations mentioned by Woods include the Foreign Investment Law, which came into effect on January 1 this year. This is an important step for China to move from the liberalization of commodities and factors to a higher level of institutional opening, and it has become an important "plus point" for foreign investors to invest in China.
People noticed that after the outbreak, some US politicians advocated the so-called "decoupling" of the Sino-US industrial chain, and even proposed that the government consider "paying bills" for the withdrawal of US companies from China. Right now, the construction of a US $ 10 billion U.S. enterprise project in China has clearly countered the fallacy of the so-called "de-Chineseization" of the industrial chain.
In the past three months, China has effectively controlled the epidemic by virtue of precise decision-making and deployment, strong mobilization and execution power, and the unity and dedication of 1.4 billion people. It has comprehensively promoted the resumption of production and production. The strong economic resilience has also strengthened the confidence of international capital to continue investing in China.
On April 8th, on the day of the “unblocking” in Wuhan, another American company, Wal-Mart, announced that it would expand its investment in Wuhan by 3 billion yuan (approximately US $ 420 million). The American Chamber of Commerce in China, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and PricewaterhouseCoopers China released a joint investigation report on the 17th that more than 70% of the American companies interviewed in China said they would not produce, supply or purchase business because of the impact of the epidemic. Moved overseas.
It is not only U.S. companies that have full confidence in China's economy. According to the British "Financial Times" reported recently, the British electric kettle manufacturer Strix's three factories in China have fully restored production capacity within a few weeks. The company's CEO pointed out that China's standardization and discipline in the fight against epidemics will help companies resume work and production.
Under the epidemic, foreign investment in China is still hot, but also because they can not give up a large market with a population of 1.4 billion people. For example, the first phase of ExxonMobil's projects include devices with an annual output of up to 1.6 million tons of ethylene. The various chemical products produced can be widely used in industrial and personal consumer products, and a considerable portion of them will be directly supplied to the Chinese market. It is expected that the first phase of the project will bring ExxonMobil 39 billion yuan (about 5.5 billion US dollars) in operating income every year. This is just as the investment experts of Berry Investment Company said, "China's largest market is China."
Currently, due to the impact of the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic, global cross-border investment, trade in goods, and personnel exchanges have decreased significantly. The International Monetary Fund recently reduced its 2020 global economic growth forecast to -3%, the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. economic recession. Under the haze, ExxonMobil's US $ 10 billion investment project in China started as scheduled, which undoubtedly cast a vote for the firm promotion of economic globalization, which is conducive to strengthening the confidence of all parties to overcome the epidemic and promoting deepening international economic and trade cooperation.
According to JP Morgan analysts forecast, China will be the first to get out of the economic slowdown caused by the virus. Indeed, China has comparative advantages such as a complete industrial system, sound infrastructure, abundant human resources, and labor resources that have accumulated over decades of development. These are by no means short-term impacts of a sudden epidemic situation that can be changed.
The fundamentals of China ’s long-term economic growth have not changed, and China has not changed as an important part of the global industrial chain and a popular global investment destination. In the future, the door of China's opening will "open more and more." Those keen and far-sighted multinational companies will surely gain more opportunities for mutual benefit and win-win in the process of participating in China's economic recovery and development.
