Since the beginning of this year, despite the complex situations such as intensifying global economic uncertainty and accelerated reconstruction of industrial chains, China's foreign investment has remained resilient, and the pace of "going out" of the industrial chain and supply chain is firm. This can be seen from the frequent reports of Chinese companies going overseas.

As the world's second largest economy, from traditional industries to high-tech fields, China has laid out full-chain production with its diversified advantages, providing important support for the stable operation of the global industrial chain and supply chain. At the same time, more and more Chinese companies are making global industrial layouts, bringing valuable products, services, business models and innovative achievements around the world, helping win-win cooperation between the global industrial chain and supply chain.

Still resilient under severe circumstances

According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, from January to June, China's entire industry's foreign direct investment was 574.86 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.1%. Among them, Chinese domestic investors have made non-financial direct investments in 6,887 overseas enterprises in 150 countries and regions around the world, with a total investment of 518.89 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.6%.

In this regard, Zhang Zhe, assistant researcher at the Institute of Foreign Investment Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, said that the international environment in the first half of the year was complex and changeable. Although my country's total foreign direct investment decreased slightly, the resilience of the "going out" of the industrial chain and supply chain of my country's enterprises is still in a state of steady progress and a development trend of better structure. It is mainly manifested in two aspects:

First of all, in the face of uncertainty in the external environment, the internationalization strategy of our country's enterprises has become more firm. The growth trend of foreign non-financial direct investment in the first half of the year is closely related to the continued deepening of the overseas real economy by Chinese enterprises, a more stable global operation foundation, an optimized investment structure, and an extension direction towards high value-added fields. Secondly, jointly building the "Belt and Road" countries continue to become the focus of overseas layout of my country's enterprises, and gradually upgrade from focusing on infrastructure cooperation to a reasonable and orderly layout of advantageous industrial chains and supply chains. Focusing on high-value-added fields such as manufacturing, digital economy, and green energy, Chinese enterprises have built a diversified and resilient cross-border industrial chain and supply chain cooperation network in co-construction of the country. Data shows that from January to June, Chinese enterprises invested 135.85 billion yuan in non-financial direct investment in jointly building the "Belt and Road" countries, an increase of 22% year-on-year.

Lu Yue, professor of the National Institute of Opening-up at the University of International Business and Executive Dean of the Institute of Global Innovation and Governance, also said that in the first half of the year, my country's foreign investment showed strong resilience in a complex environment, because the "going out" of the industrial chain and supply chain has become the key driving force for foreign investment cooperation, showing a development trend of structural optimization, model upgrading and strategic response in parallel.

Specifically, first, the deep integration of the industrial chain and supply chain promotes the optimization of the investment structure. Industrial clusters represented by the "new three" are accelerating their overseas trip, indicating that China's supply chain overseas trip is no longer limited to the terminal manufacturing link, but has extended to the entire process links such as R&D, warehousing, sales and after-sales. The second is the group-to-door overseas model to help industrial coordination and share risks. Compared with the traditional single enterprise expansion model, clustered "grouping to go overseas" effectively disperse risks and form synergy, and promote the normalization of upstream and downstream linkage layout. Third, diversified layout has become a strategic choice to deal with uncertainties in the international environment. Faced with increasingly severe trade restrictions and security review situations, Chinese companies have accelerated the pace of production capacity layout in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia.

The situation needs to be broken through multiple challenges

It is worth noting that although accelerating the "going out" of the industrial chain and supply chain has become a must-have for more and more Chinese companies, they are also facing some realistic challenges in the process.

Zhang Zhe said that, first, the uncertainty of global trade policies has increased, and some countries have implemented localization strategies and strengthened investment reviews, which has brought compliance and access pressure to Chinese companies. Second, the overseas layout of some Chinese companies has problems such as duplicate construction, insufficient coordination, and weak risk control. The overseas comprehensive service system such as key resources, talents, and logistics needs to be improved, and the overall efficiency of the industrial chain and supply chain needs to be improved.

Lu Yue also felt the same: "At present, the complexity of the external environment and the challenges of internal management are intertwined, which puts forward higher requirements for the global operation capabilities of Chinese companies. Chinese companies need to be innovatively driven, deepen international cooperation, improve global resource allocation capabilities, and show greater achievements in serving the construction of a new development pattern. Governments and industry associations should strengthen policy support and service guarantees, help enterprises break through external constraints, achieve higher quality 'going out', and continuously inject impetus into the stability and prosperity of the global industrial chain and supply chain."

Zhang Zhe suggested that promoting the "going out" of the industrial chain and supply chain can focus on four aspects: First, guide leading enterprises in key industries to integrate global resources and drive the integration of upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and supply chain to overseas; Second, take overseas parks such as overseas economic and trade cooperation zones as a starting point to build an industrial chain and supply chain collaboration platform for countries with the joint construction of the "Belt and Road"; Third, accelerate the construction and improvement of overseas comprehensive service systems and enhance enterprises' overseas risk resistance; Fourth, improve the coordination mechanism of local governments, industry associations, and financial institutions, and form a multi-party linkage and coordinated promotion.