The signing ceremony of foreign-funded projects in Guangzhou. [Photo/Nanfang Daily]

In 2021, Guangzhou utilized foreign investment of 54.33 billion yuan ($8.54 billion). This is a 10 percent increase year-on-year and an 18.3 percent increase compared with the same period in 2019, averaging an 8.7 percent increase in the last two years. This ranks Guangzhou among the top in foreign investments utilizing cities in China.

The total foreign investment exceeded $8 billion for the first time, surpassing the $1 billion mark every year for four consecutive years. A total of 4,048 new foreign-funded enterprises settled in Guangzhou, up 50.2 percent year-on-year.

A total of 330 from the world top 500 enterprises have invested in 1，486 projects Guangzhou. Large projects with foreign investments of more than 100 million accounted for nearly 70 percent, from enterprises such as AstraZeneca and Unilever. The Fortune Global 500 companies increased their investment in Guangzhou by more than 40 billion yuan in 2021.

In 2021, Guangzhou attached great importance to stabilizing foreign investment, improving the complaint service mechanism for foreign investors, and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of foreign-invested enterprises.

Guangzhou took the lead in launching a 720-billion-yuan strategic cooperation plan to support and stabilize foreign investment where nearly 1,000 foreign-funded enterprises received over 100 billion yuan in financing.