Foreign company bosses give thumbs up to Xi's CIIE speech

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech via video link at the opening ceremony of the fourth China International Import Expo in Shanghai on Thursday night.

A number of foreign company bosses gave their feedback after the speech.

Will Song, global senior vice president and China chairman of Johnson & Johnson

In his keynote speech at the opening ceremony for the 4th CIIE, President Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of high-level opening-up, shared opportunities, inclusiveness and development, which have been especially encouraging for foreign-funded companies, including Johnson & Johnson, that are determined to invest in China.

Johnson & Johnson is a "loyal exhibitor" which will be at the CIIE for the fourth time. Each year, we have been expanding our booth, bringing more exhibits and introducing diverse new products. Behind these positive changes is our strong confidence in the China market and solid commitment to support the government to build a healthy community for all mankind, empowered by innovation-driven high-quality growth.

Steven Lien, president of Honeywell China and Aerospace Asia Pacific

In his speech, President Xi emphasized openness and cooperation, and showed the world that China is willing to further share development opportunities and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results, which is very encouraging. As a new international public platform for open cooperation and mutually beneficial development, the CIIE demonstrates the sincerity of China to continue sharing development opportunities with the world and its commitment to greater openness. This year also marks the 20th anniversary of China's accession to the World Trade Organization and it is a milestone in China's opening-up. The success of the 4th CIIE will be another strong evidence of China's opening-up commitment.

Against the backdrop of China further opening up its market, Honeywell will continue with its China strategies of 'East for East' and 'East to Rest,' While riding on business opportunities arising from China's 'dual carbon' goals, we will strive to contribute to the country's sustainable development.

Anna Van Acker, senior vice president of MSD and president of MSD China

CIIE was convened as scheduled under the normalization of the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic. President Xi affirmed in his keynote speech at the opening ceremony China's unwavering determination to expand high-level openness and share development opportunities with the world, as well as support of the fair distribution and unobstructed trade of key medical supplies such as vaccines around the world. These all reflect China's confidence in and commitment to further opening-up, collaboration to achieve multilateral win-win, and joining hands with the international community to build health defense and a community with a shared future for all mankind.

MSD has witnessed the continuous opening-up of the Chinese market and the optimization of the business environment. This has strengthened our resolution to develop and grow in China and our expectation of cooperating with Chinese partners, scientific research institutions and excellent talents to contribute to the overall health of the Chinese society.

The epidemic is still affecting our lives. MSD will continue to unswervingly work with different stakeholders to square up to challenges and take responsibilities with a sense of urgency, share resources with partners to facilitate innovation, and collaborate extensively for the health and wellbeing of patients. We will contribute our part to the fight against global public health challenges, strive to bring more high-quality innovative health solutions to Chinese patients and consumers, and improve the accessibility and affordability of medicines and vaccines, to comprehensively help China accelerate the realization of the goals of "Healthy China 2030."

Chunyuan Gu, chairman of ABB China

President Xi's keynote speech was very inspiring. It once again conveyed China's determination to promote high-level opening-up, to share market opportunities and to contribute to an open world economy, which further strengthened our confidence in expanding our strategic footprint in China with a focus on the areas of digitalization, industrial Internet, artificial intelligence and sustainable development.

ABB considers the CIIE as an important platform to share our latest leading digital and smart technologies that help energize the transformation of industry and work together with our customers and partners for high-quality development and for a more sustainable future.

Felix Gutsche, global senior vice president of Boehringer Ingelheim

I am impressed by the determination that President Xi demonstrated in his opening speech to "unswervingly open up at a higher level." In recent years, China has made remarkable progress in accelerating the approval of new drugs, continuously improving the business environment, and trade facilitation measures. As an international company, we benefit from and believe in open borders, open trade and a level playing field.

The China market is one of Boehringer Ingelheim's key growth engines. The successful CIIE and the strategic positioning on reform and opening-up at a higher level have further strengthened our confidence in increasing investment in the China market.

Grace Tao, vice president of Tesla

President Xi's keynote speech was inspiring and further consolidates Tesla's determination and confidence to cooperate with Chinese partners and facilitate the "dual-circulation" strategy.

There is no doubt that China is an important growth engine in today's world as the country was one of the few major economies to realize positive growth in trade of goods last year. It was a result of China's efficient management in the fight against COVID-19 and its choice of building up a new mechanism featuring opening-up at a higher level.

Tesla is committed to deepening collaboration with Chinese companies, with the aim of constructing a better ecosystem for green transport and an optimized industrial chain for green vehicles. Multinational companies, which have shared the opportunities in China, are also breeding growth for the world economy. We believe it will become a firm power to drive economic recovery across the world.

Jerry Wang, president of Siemens Healthineers China

The saying that "The ocean intakes water from all rivers. Its greatness comes from its inclusion" perfectly reflects my impression of the CIIE and President Xi's opening speech. Rather than a routine exhibition event, the CIIE has been powered as the gravitational field and the place of origin, attracting innovation companies and resources of all aspects, which inter-connect with and empower each other on the CIIE platform.

President Xi's speech emphasized China's commitment on four areas, especially the commitment to drive high quality opening-up in the health care industry. This commitment reveals China's persistent efforts at enhancing the health care innovation ecosystem to support building a community of a shared healthy future.

Pius S. Hornstein, country lead of Sanofi China

President Xi's keynote speech underlines the importance of openness and cooperation. Through these pillars of support, we can promote the global economy's recovery and share prosperity, enabling countries to more positively respond to global issues such as pandemics, climate change and energy issues.

The CIIE provides a unique platform and valuable opportunity to promote global economic cooperation and greatly boosts the confidence of Chinese and foreign investors.

Fujiwara Kentaro, CEO of Shiseido China

In President Xi's opening speech, he said that China will remain resolute in expanding high-level opening-up, sharing development opportunities with the world and making economic globalization more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial for all.

Under the 14th Five-Year Plan, China is reshaping its economy, offering international businesses a more comprehensive, more convenient, and a higher quality trade environment. As China strives to achieve "common prosperity," this will also stimulate the consumer market, creating enormous opportunities for all those involved.

Cecilia Qi, vice president and general manager of Pharma and Vaccines at GSK China

President Xi's opening speech with emphasis on China's Four Firmness was truly enlightening. As one of the first multinational pharmaceutical companies to enter China, our confidence and resolution to uplift the China strategy has been further strengthened, envisioning a more open, collaborative, inclusive and innovative future.

We can't agree more on what President Xi mentioned in his speech that solitary walkers are difficult to rise, and many walkers are easy to follow. The world of a shared future still faces multiple contingent challenges which need collaborative wisdom and contribution. Echoing this, GSK has kept its focus and momentum on patient-centric, science-led and innovation-driven development. As a responsible corporate citizen and industry leader, GSK will continue to put unremitting efforts to explore "In China, For China" health solutions by uniting science, talent and technology, so as to pursue all-round health treatment and prevention for Chinese people's well-being.

Rajat Agarwal, president of Henkel China

We welcome President Xi's speech and his message on expanding high-level opening-up and sharing development opportunities with the world. This commitment provides a stable foundation for Henkel in China, our third largest and fastest-growing market.

We are also excited that China will continue deepening international cooperation in areas, including green development and digital economy, which will provide new growth opportunities for Henkel. We are proud to bring our global experience in sustainability, impactful innovation and digitalization to our customers and consumers in China.

At this CIIE we will proudly showcase Henkel's powerful brands, innovative products and technologies that drive sustainable living. Meanwhile, we will continue to invest in high-quality development and strengthen our end-to-end capabilities to innovate in China for China.

Victor Chan, vice president of Agilent and general manager of Agilent China Commercial Organization

In his speech, President Xi once again stressed China's determination to maintain a high level of openness. Amid tremendous resilience of China's economy under the impact of the epidemic, the continuous efforts on opening up are indispensable.

Agilent entered China when the country was in the early stages of its reform and opening-up, and we witnessed and participated in the rapid development of China over the next 40 years. We have resonance with President Xi's speech from the bottom of our hearts.

What encouraged us is that, among the several opening-up measures, President Xi also announced that China will continue to expand the opening up in the fields of high-tech, energy conservation and environmental protection, in which our innovative technologies could play a profound role.

Jeffrey Xu, senior vice president of 3M and president of 3M China

We are excited and inspired by President Xi's speech that reaffirmed China's resolute commitment to expanding high-level opening-up and sharing market opportunities with the world.

China is an important market for 3M. During the past 37 years, we have made significant investments in China, delivering on our commitment to our customers and consumers here through a comprehensive products portfolio and innovative technologies. 3M looks forward to introducing more innovative achievements to China market via high-level platforms like the CIIE.

Vivian Bian, CEO of Roche Pharmaceuticals China

President Xi's keynote speech was impressive and inspiring. This year marks the 20th anniversary of China's accession to the World Trade Organization. It is also the first year of China's 14th Five-Year Plan period, and an important moment for China to achieve full economic recovery. This year's CIIE is of great significance.

President Xi highlighted that China will further shorten the negative list of market access for foreign investors, and expand the opening-up of the health care and other sectors in an orderly manner. It will continue to create massive cooperation opportunities from China and raise the world's expectations on the Chinese market to open up at a higher level. Therefore, we are fully confident about the future of the China market!