Multinational tech firms vow to deepen ties in China

Multinational tech companies vow to deepen ties in China, as the world's second-largest economy ratchets up efforts to push ahead with advanced manufacturing, digital transformation artificial intelligence and green technologies that will bring tons of new opportunities.

Noting that geopolitically driven "de-risking" poses a big risk to global economic recovery, they said China holds great appeal for foreign companies, because the country boasts a complete supply chain support system, a strong logistics system, a big market and favorable government policies that spur innovation.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, said during a trip to China this week that Apple is confident in the prospects of the Chinese market and the US company is willing to strengthen cooperation with China in high-end manufacturing, digital economy, and other fields.

The comments came as Apple celebrates its 30-year anniversary in China, which is not just a crucial market, but a key supply chain center and an innovation engine for the company.

Cook told China Daily in an interview this week that Chinese app developers have the potential to repeat their global success stories with the company's augmented reality device Vision Pro in the future, just as how they already have done with iPhones.

The remarks show that Chinese developers are not only important to Apple's current iPhone ecosystem, but are also key to the company's future innovation ecosystem of AR, experts said.

Shen Bo, senior vice-president of ASML Holding NV, the Dutch chip manufacturing equipment provider, shares a similar commitment to the Chinese market.

"Our long-term presence and business operation in China over the past three decades is a strong testimonial of our continuous confidence and commitment to the market," he said in an interview with China Daily.

"With the growth of China's business, the number of our employees has been growing steadily. In 2017, we had less than 500 employees and now, the number is over 1,600," Shen said.

According to him, in the face of complex international headwinds, China's economy has shown strong resilience, and the fundamentals for long-term development of the China market remain unchanged.

"Moving forward, we will continue to expand our team to support the development of our sustainable, growing business in China," Shen added.

His views were echoed by Chen Xudong, chairman and general manager of IBM Greater China.

"Apart from its colossal market size, China possesses a complete and diverse industrial chain, as well as a highly skilled workforce, hence the Chinese economy exhibits remarkable resilience," Chen said.

"As China continues to expand domestic consumption, accelerate industrial upgrading, and promote high-level opening-up, I believe that China has ample policy space to counter economic downturn pressures and explore new growth opportunities in sectors such as new energy, artificial intelligence and green low-carbon industries," Chen added.

"We will continue to work alongside our Chinese partners and clients to address their needs and help them solve their most critical challenges," the senior executive added.

Denis Depoux, global managing director of consultancy Roland Berger, said "Thanks to the improved productivity, broad industrial clusters, and well-established infrastructure, China was, is, and will remain the factory of the world."

"The combination of a broad local market and the strong legacy export base make China difficult to replace. We believe that China's fundamentals remain strong, in spite of a difficult transition in the short term. That global factory is producing now more added-value thanks to the massive industrial modernization effort," Depoux added.

According to him, there are three key drivers leading China's future development: industrial modernization, energy transition and decarbonization, and transformation of domestic consumption, which will generate new opportunities for multinationals.

Fang Ying, president of Ericsson China, said the Swedish telecom company has always considered China as pivotal. This is not only due to its commercial potential but also because many of the 5G technologies and applications developed here serve as a model for the rest of the world.

"Ericsson will continue its collaboration with service providers and other stakeholders in China to build high-performance, sustainable, intelligent, and efficient 5G networks," Fang added.