Why Foreign Investors Choose to Stay in China?

IN response to recent claims that U.S. and Japanese companies are moving their business out of China, spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Commerce Gao Feng indicated on April 16, even though the raging pandemic has had some negative impact on foreign companies in China, the global supply chain will not be disrupted or transferred following anyone or any country’s will.

- ZHOU LIN

Stimulus Package Fuels Production

In the factory of JLG (Tianjin) Equipment Technology Co., Ltd., two production lines have been working round the clock since its operations resumed on February 23. “Last December, Japanese customers placed an order of 200 sets of access equipment. Since then we’ve been in close contact to follow up the delivery schedule,” said general manager Lawrence Zhu, noting that they have to ramp up production because the companyhad been closed for three weeks after the breakout of COVID-19.

Established in 2008, JLG (Tianjin) Equipment Technology Co., Ltd., located at the Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone, is a solely American-owned enterprise and a subsidiary of JLG Industries Inc. – a world leading designer and manufacturer of access equipment. JLG (Tianjin) is also the first plant that JLG built in Asia, producing access and lifting equipment such as aerial work platforms and telehandlers to meet increasing demand in China and the rest of Asia. The company’s total profits and tax contribution reached RMB 110 million in 2019.

The steel plates for the telehandlers are imported from Sweden and the shipment takes at least two months. “We have paid the Swedish supplier for the raw material, but the three-week closure has postponed our sales, so the company had been gripped by a temporary capital shortage,” Zhu explained.

Then, a package of 21 preferential policies for companies was unveiled by the Tianjin municipal government, applicable to foreign-invested companies as well. The Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Commerce was the first to contact JLG, and then came the Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security, the Tianjin Port, and the administration committee of the Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone.