Exclusive | Hainan officials seek investment in Germany, after trips to Japan, Hong Kong secure contracts with Swire, PwC
- Hainan officials will arrive in Germany on Monday, set to sign a contract with a German university and meet local companies
- The delegation is one of many from Chinese provinces and cities eager to connect with foreign peers to revive trade and investment
Hainan has sent officials to Germany, Japan and Hong Kong to seek offshore trade orders and investment capital to prop up a sagging economy, the South China Morning Post has learned, as local governments in China rush to make similar moves.
The southernmost province in China is sending officials led by Deputy Provincial Governor Ni Qiang to Germany, who are arriving on Monday afternoon Beijing time in Frankfurt for a five-day trip. The team is set to sign a contract with Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences to establish a vocational school in Hainan, with the first phase of around 100,000 square meters. It will also visit local companies.
“We are trying to expand the market for trade, and to tell global society that China is still open to the world,” Han Shengjian, head of the province’s Department of Commerce and director general of of the Hainan Provincial Bureau of International Economic Development, said in an interview. The province is planning trips to other regions such as the United States, Southeast Asia, and a few other nations in Europe soon to promote business opportunities with the tropical island, said the official, who is part of the delegation.
The trips came as a number of other provinces, including Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Sichuan, as well as cities including Ningbo and Jiaxing in Zhejiang have dispatched official delegations to European countries, Japan and Indonesia. Almost all of these groups are venturing beyond the Chinese mainland for the first time in three years after the recent loosening of Covid-19 restrictions.
The rush underscores the need to revive trade and foreign investment. China’s exports and imports recorded big declines in November, as the world’s second-largest economy is forecast to miss its annual growth goal of around 5.5 per cent.
Hainan is making an all-out effort to accelerate its development and meet Chinese President Xi Jinping’s goal of becoming the largest free-trade port in the nation, with all goods becoming duty-free by 2025.
