Optimizing business environment boosts foreign confidence in E China's Hefei

This summer, Continental Tires brought a “new gift” to its “old friend”, Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province.

The gift is its first and only fully foreign-owned tire manufacturing base in China, the Continental Tire Hefei Plant, located in the Nangang Science Park of the Hefei High-Tech Zone. The company held its official commissioning ceremony for its phase four project on June 20. Upon reaching full capacity, the plant is expected to produce nearly 18 million passenger car and light truck tires annually.

"With the expansion of phase four, the total investment in the Hefei production base will be close to 1 billion euros (about $1.08 billion)," said Zhou Yuan, deputy general manager of the Continental Tire Hefei Plant and financial director of Continental Tire China. As a world-renowned auto parts manufacturer, the partnership between Continental Tire and Hefei began in September 2009. "Hefei attaches great importance to the development of the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry, and with major automakers like Volkswagen, NIO, and BYD establishing operations here, the automotive industry supply chain has continuously improved, giving us confidence to continue investing in Hefei,” Zhou added.

Continental Tire products. (People's Daily Online/Chen Ruotian)

The increasing confidence of foreign investment is inseparable from the sound business environment in Hefei. According to an official from the Hefei High-Tech Zone, in order to respond in a timely manner to the needs of foreign enterprises, the zone has established a key foreign investment project database that begins at the early stages of engagement with enterprises. Full-cycle and all-round support is provided at every step, including site selection, financing, construction and scenario matching. In addition, the Hefei High-Tech Zone also took the lead in establishing Anhui Province’s first international community, the Linxi Community. The community contains a number of high-quality international living facilities, such as pediatric medical centers and proton and heavy ion centers, tailored to the needs of expats.

Similar to the auto industry, Hefei's new display industry is also booming. In Hefei Xinzhan High-tech Industrial Development Zone (hereinafter referred to as "Hefei Xinzhan High-tech Zone"), Corning Display Technologies’s factory is directly connected with BOE’s intelligent factory of Gen 10.5 TFT-LCD production line, enabling the large-size glass substrates to be directly conveyed to BOE's panel production line through an automatic corridor.

Since the implementation of its first project in 2015, Corning has continued to increase its investment in Hefei. In the past nine years, it has successively established three factories in the areas of display technologies, environmental technologies, and automotive glass solutions. The company also built a logistics center in the Hefei Xinzhan High-tech Zone, with Corning’s total investment in Anhui Province valued at more than $3 billion.

Corning Gen 10.5 display glass substrate. (Provided by Corning)

"In the past nine years, with the support of the government at all levels, many of Corning's investment projects in Anhui have operated well and achieved stable development. Anhui has become one of Corning's largest manufacturing bases overseas," said Zhang Wenqing, senior government affairs director, Corning Greater China. The eight emerging industrial chains cultivated by Hefei perfectly fit with Corning's innovative product portfolio. For this reason, Corning continues to further invest and deepen cooperation with Hefei.

In recent years, Hefei’s industrial chains have rapidly upgraded, with high-tech industries making significant progress. This progress is especially evident in the rapid development of the eight emerging industries of "Xin Ping Qi He" (Integrated circuits, new displays, NEVs, artificial intelligence) and "Ji Zhong Sheng Zhi" (Emergency response industry, intelligent terminal industry, biological medicine, artificial intelligence talents), which provide conditions for foreign enterprises to establish their industrial chain presence in Hefei. In addition, a series of concrete policies and measures to stabilize foreign investment and improve the business environment have further enhanced the confidence of foreign investors in Hefei.

Statistics show that by the end of 2023, there were 1,534 foreign-funded enterprises in Hefei. From January to May this year, there were 176 newly registered foreign-funded enterprises in Hefei, up 44.3 percent year-on-year, and the growth rate has exceeded 40 percent for 15 consecutive months.

(Pan Yidan, as an intern, also contributed to this article.)