Event highlights business environment and opportunities in Guangdong's capital

A view of the Pearl River and Canton Tower in Guangzhou. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

With the theme "investing in Guangzhou is investing in the future", the ninth China Guangzhou Investment Annual Conference kicked off on Monday with major activities underway, featuring a plenary forum, 18 parallel sessions and eight preceding external sessions.

Centering on the development trends of intelligent manufacturing, new generation information technology, biopharmaceuticals, new energy and other cutting-edge industries, participants are comparing notes on digitalization, ecosystem protection and internationalization.

A ceremony to announce the city's global investment partners and another for project contract signings are in the pipeline.

"An image display and business negotiation corridor" is providing a face-to-face promotion and communication platform for participants outside the main venue.

According to Luo Zheng, deputy director-general of Guangzhou's commerce bureau, this year's two-day conference is taking place simultaneously with the 133rd China Import and Export Fair, which is known as the Canton Fair.

This strategy is expected to help reach the fair's participants and attract them to the conference, so that they will get a better understanding of Guangzhou's business environment, industrial development and investment orientation.

One visit to the Canton Fair was organized for conference participants on Monday with another to be organized on Tuesday, allowing them to experience the new facility, understand platforms and explore opportunities in Guangzhou, the official said.

The 2023 Guangzhou-UK Economic and Trade Cooperation Roundtable Dialogue takes place on Feb 28, which was attended by the city's global investment partners with an interest in exploring development opportunities. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

This year's event was jointly organized with Forbes China for the first time. More than 1,000 venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, experts, scholars, business associations, and consular officials are sharing resources on site.

The conference will give an in-depth interpretation of the 2022 Forbes China Venture Capital 100, in a bid to dig into global economic and technological development trends. It will help discuss the effects of innovation on future economic and social development, promote new ideas and progress in business and explore visions for Guangzhou's high-quality development, the official said.

Following 2022's partnership with the Hurun Report to hold the first Global Unicorn CEO Conference, the two are again teaming up to publish the 2023 Global Unicorn List at a parallel session.

Prior to this, organizers held eight sessions outside the Chinese mainland, with the first event launching in Hong Kong on March 1. This was followed by the ones in Berlin, Germany; Tel Aviv in Israel; Macao; Singapore; Frankfurt in Germany; Silicon Valley in the United States and Tokyo in Japan.

As of now, those sessions have brought about 12 significant strategic cooperation agreements covering fields such as artificial intelligence, modern services, digital economy and new energy.

In 2022, investment contracts for a total of 355 major projects from more than 20 countries and regions were signed during the event, with a total contractual investment of 880 billion yuan ($128 billion).

Thousands of containers are stored at Nansha Port in Guangzhou. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

According to Hong Qian, head of Guangzhou's commerce bureau, Guangzhou will implement a global investment and cooperation partner plan this year to promote the investment climate and diversify ways to secure investment.

Monthly domestic road shows and quarterly global promotions are either in the pipeline or planned, he said, adding that more investment promotion agencies will be set up in Europe, the Middle East and other regions.

Hong said with the idea that "projects are the lifeline", Guangzhou will focus on developing the manufacturing industry and has selected a list of target companies and mapped industrial domains.

"The city will keep close eyes on strategic industrial clusters and make promotions precise for target industrial chains," Hong said.

Data from Guangzhou's commerce bureau showed that in 2022, Guangzhou signed investment contracts for 1,565 projects, up 35.3 percent from 2021.

The number of newly registered projects was 1,767 in 2022, up 39.5 percent year-on-year. In 2022, Guangzhou utilized foreign investment of 57.4 billion yuan, up 5.7 percent from 2021.

A total of 335 Global Fortune 500 companies had invested in 1,658 projects in Guangzhou by the end of 2022.

With a permanent resident population of more than 18 million plus a floating population exceeding 4 million, Guangzhou's GDP reached 2.88 trillion yuan in 2022.

Investment in the manufacturing sector has maintained a level of more than 400 billion yuan for four years. Meanwhile, its total retail sales of consumer goods and foreign trade volume both surpassed 1 trillion yuan.

The city also boasted more than 12,300 high-tech companies by the end of 2022, according to official statistics.