Original title: Standing at the forefront, Jiangsu holds the sail of opening up and win-win for the world

Openness is a distinctive symbol of Chinese modernization and a distinctive background color for Jiangsu's development. In the first half of this year, the province's import and export of goods was 2.81 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.2% year-on-year, an increase of 2.3 percentage points higher than the country; the province actually used foreign capital of US$11.54 billion, maintaining the first place in the country; 806 new foreign investment projects were added in the province, of which 502 new foreign investment projects were added in countries jointly building the "Belt and Road"... Jiangsu has delivered a "report card" full of highlights in the field of opening up. Focusing on building a two-way open hub with world-wide aggregate strength, all parts of Jiangsu are brave enough to be the vanguard of reform and opening up in the new era with practical actions, and taking the lead in serving the overall development of the country.

"Go out" steadily

Foreign cooperation has yielded new results

In April, the 137th Canton Fair was held in Guangzhou, and the scale of exhibitions in Jiangsu hit a new high, with the total number of booths exceeding 7,000 for the first time; in May, the 26th Jiangsu Export Commodity Exhibition was held in Osaka, Japan, with the exhibit structure further optimized, and the effect of merchants attending and negotiations continued to improve; in June, the 2025 Yangtze River Delta Cross-border E-commerce Fair was held, and more than 20 global mainstream cross-border e-commerce platforms participated in the exhibition. During this period, a total of 46 activities such as the global cross-border platform conference, Jiangsu Province Public Overseas Warehouse Resource Matching Conference, Cross-border E-commerce Private Fair, Amazon Night, etc. were held, and each event was full... Various international exhibitions are the main channels for foreign trade companies to understand industry development and market demand, display and sell, expand overseas customers, and negotiate transactions. In order to support enterprises to "go global" to diversify and develop international markets, the Provincial Department of Commerce adheres to policy guidance and market operations, and promotes all types of enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to make good use of various international exhibition trading platforms to undertake overseas orders, consolidate traditional markets such as Europe and the United States, and to explore emerging markets such as the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" countries. This year, two batches of trade promotion plans have been issued, the number of provincial-level exhibitions has expanded to 288, and the proportion of exhibitions in emerging markets has increased to more than 60%. 5,750 enterprises have been organized to participate in 133 key domestic and foreign exhibitions to expand markets and compete for orders.

"Since the beginning of this year, the external environment for foreign trade development has been complex and severe, and the demand for enterprises to explore emerging markets is more urgent. We continue to promote the 'Jiangsu Good Products Global' action, focusing on emerging markets such as ASEAN, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, further expand the scale of key exhibitions, and increase the proportion of support for emerging markets. Local governments have also formulated local trade promotion plans in accordance with local conditions and combined with industrial characteristics. Provincial and municipalities have coordinated to support enterprises in expanding markets and competing for orders." Zhen Liping, director of the Foreign Trade Department of the Provincial Department of Commerce, said that in the second half of the year, it will continue to accurately match corporate needs, guide foreign trade enterprises to participate in more than 180 overseas goods trade exhibitions, and provincial and municipalities will strengthen linkage and support more enterprises to expand orders overseas. At the same time, more than 3,300 companies were organized to participate in the Autumn Canton Fair, and make good use of the Canton Fair platform to expand customers and stabilize share.

While the quality of foreign trade is increasing and the quantity is stable, Jiangsu's foreign cooperation is also stable. In the first half of the year, 806 new foreign investment projects were added in the province, with the amount of China's agreed investment of US$5.67 billion; China's actual investment was US$4.29 billion, an increase of 8.1% year-on-year. Among them, 502 new foreign investment projects were added to countries jointly built the "Belt and Road" and the agreed investment amount was US$3.7 billion, accounting for 62.3% and 65.2% respectively. "We continue to deepen foreign cooperation around the areas of promoting and jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative, cooperation park improvement plan, and optimizing service guarantees." Jiang Xin, deputy director of the Provincial Department of Commerce, introduced that in the first half of the year, Jiangsu actively promoted economic and trade cooperation with the Belt and Road Initiative countries. The Ministry of Commerce officially approved the upgrading of the Jiangsu Central Asia Center project to build the China-Central Asia trade smooth cooperation platform. On August 5, the platform was officially listed in Nanjing. We will focus on promoting the improvement plan for key cooperation parks, organize more than 100 enterprises to inspect and connect key overseas economic and trade cooperation zones, and organize more than 200 enterprises to participate in special promotion activities for overseas economic and trade cooperation zones. We will focus on optimizing service guarantees, run the Jiangsu comprehensive service platform for going out of the world with the "full process" and actively provide enterprises with one-stop comprehensive support services. As of the end of June, 10,677 "going out" business items have been handled online.

"Bring in" steadily improves quality

Strong magnetic field effect continues to appear

As a major economic province and an open province, Jiangsu has always been a "strong magnetic field" that attracts foreign giants to take root and lay out. In the first half of the year, the province actually used foreign capital by US$11.54 billion. Not only did the scale of foreign capital remain the first in the country, accounting for 0.8 percentage points in the country compared with the same period last year, but the foreign capital structure was also continuously optimized. The actual use of foreign capital in the service industry increased by 0.8 percentage points. The actual investment of overseas investors through profit reinvestment increased by 5.9% year-on-year, accounting for 21.7% of the province's total. It is worth mentioning that many key regions continue to increase their investment in our province, among which the actual investment in Germany, Luxembourg and Japan in our province increased by 107.4%, 222.5% and 165.4% year-on-year respectively. The Provincial Department of Commerce, together with all localities and departments, worked together to accelerate the implementation of major projects, held major economic and trade activities, actively optimized the business environment for foreign investment, and injected strong impetus into attracting high-quality foreign investment.

On July 18, one of the six largest information technology research and development centers in the world, China's first and only information technology research and development centers, and Asia's largest information technology research and development base were launched in Nanjing. As an important achievement in Nanjing's deepening cooperation with Germany and strengthening the project attraction of leading foreign-funded enterprises, the project will focus on cutting-edge fields such as AI, industrial digital twins, and intelligent manufacturing, and provide digital solutions for BMW's entire chain of global production, sales, and after-sales. In the view of Dai Hexuan, president and CEO of BMW Brilliance, Nanjing provides the company with an attractive talent and scientific and technological innovation environment. At the same time, governments at all levels in Nanjing have always provided great support for the company's development, so it is natural to choose to invest in Nanjing. The reporter learned that Nanjing City has always regarded Germany as one of its most important economic and trade partners. Up to now, 304 German-funded projects have been rooted in Nanjing, with actual foreign capital utilization of US$2.17 billion, and the annual operating income of Ningde enterprises exceeded 45 billion yuan, with a total profit of 3.46 billion yuan. Among them, German leading enterprises such as Siemens, Bosch, and Phoenix Electric all have important institutions or production bases in Nanjing, forming a deep foundation for cooperation with Germany.

In the second half of the year, in what aspects will Jiangsu continue to promote the steady improvement of the quality of foreign investment in the use of foreign investment and make positive contributions to the overall situation of foreign investment in the country? "We will work with relevant departments to implement the national action plan to stabilize foreign investment in 2025 and the 22 measures to stabilize foreign investment in our province, and the tax credit policy for direct investment by overseas investors through distribution profits, etc., hold high-quality key investment promotion activities such as the Taihu Forum for Entrepreneurs and the 25th Investment and Trade Fair to enhance the confidence of multinational corporations to invest in Jiangsu." Pan Yuchi, director of the Foreign Investment Department of the Provincial Department of Commerce, said that the next step will be to give full play to the dividends of the reinvestment of foreign enterprises in profits, deferred tax payment and tax credit policy, enhance the enthusiasm of foreign investors to reinvest, and support qualified foreign investors to enjoy the tax credit policy in accordance with the law. Strive to include more foreign-invested projects in the list of national key foreign-invested projects, strengthen factor guarantees, promote early implementation and early production, and coordinate relevant departments in a timely manner to help enterprises solve difficult problems.

"Education carrier" demonstration and leadership

Institutional opening up is progressing steadily

Platform carriers are an important support and strong engine to lead the open development of the region. In terms of the construction and development of economic and technological development zones, there are currently 124 economic and technological development zones at or above the provincial level in the province, including 27 national-level economic and technological development zones, ranking first in the country. According to the 2024 national economic and technological development zone comprehensive development level assessment and evaluation results announced by the Ministry of Commerce, 2 of the 27 national economic and technological development zones in our province have entered the top 5 and 9 have entered the top 30, all ranking first in the country, and Suzhou Industrial Park has achieved "nine consecutive championships". At the same time, we have accelerated the construction of international cooperation parks and built 18 international cooperation parks at or above the provincial level. Continue to strengthen policy planning guidance and promote the provincial economic and technological development zones to better play the role of reform, innovation, demonstration and leading. A number of characteristic industrial clusters exceeding 100 billion yuan, such as the information technology industry and smart grid industry, are accelerating their development, and the green, low-carbon and intensive development of the economic and technological development zones in the province continues to be promoted.

In terms of the construction and development of the free trade pilot zone, in the first half of the year, Jiangsu had two institutional innovation achievements nationwide, and has now formed more than 450 institutional innovation achievements, of which 30 were replicated and promoted nationwide and 165 were replicated and promoted in the province. Jiangsu has continuously deepened the open and innovative development of the entire biomedicine industry chain, and carried out a pilot program for the "whitelist" system for importing items for biomedicine research and development, covering 14 enterprises and 44 drugs. Give full play to the industrial advantages of the free trade pilot zone and focus on building four trillion-level industrial clusters, namely new generation information technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, biomedicine, and nanotechnology application. Relying on the 57 national-level economic and technological development zones, high-tech zones, comprehensive bonded zones and other platform carriers in the province, we will amplify the radiation and driving effect of the free trade pilot zone.

On July 18, the "2024-2025 China Free Trade Pilot Zone Institutional Innovation Index" was officially released. Suzhou Free Trade Zone ranked tenth, up 3 places in the national ranking, and ranked first among the fifth batch of approved free trade pilot zones. As a systematic research result that summarizes the institutional innovation experience of the free trade pilot zone and further analyzes the reform direction, the index has been released to the public for ten consecutive years, providing constructive opinions and suggestions for the implementation and innovation direction of the institutional innovation policies of the free trade pilot zone. Suzhou Free Trade Zone has always adhered to the core task of institutional innovation, and has formed a total of 240 first and leading institutional innovation achievements in the country and the province, 13 replicas and promotions nationwide, and 59 replicas and promotions in the province. The reporter learned from the Suzhou Free Trade Zone that at a new starting point, the area will continue to take institutional innovation as the core, anchor the goals of high-level opening up and high-quality development, further release the dividends of reform, and contribute more "free trade experience" to the economic transformation and upgrading of Suzhou and even the whole country. (Zhou Kaihang)