In the first two months (January-February) of 2025, a total of 3,484 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in Guangdong, with a year-on-year increase of 16.8%, and the actual use of foreign capital during the period reached 23.31 billion yuan, up 5.9% year-on-year, Zhu Xiaojun, Deputy Director of the Department of Commerce of Guangdong province, said at a media briefing on attracting and utilizing foreign investment on March 24.

Notably, investment from major developed economies, such as the US, EU countries, Japan, and ROK, increased by 52.2%  in the first two months of 2025, among which investment from the EU countries increased by 70.4%.  

Foreign investment in the manufacturing sector highlighted

During the period under review, the actual use of foreign capital in the manufacturing sector across the province reached 7.41 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.5%, 28.6 percentage points faster than the overall growth rate and accounting for 31.8% of the total actual foreign capital used in the province.

In May last year, Guangdong introduced a new round of foreign investment incentive policies, which effectively promoted a number of high-quality projects to increase capital and expand production. In the first two months of this year, seven foreign-funded projects with actual capital exceeding 100 million US dollars were established in the province, with a total actual foreign capital of 1.5 billion US dollars.

As one of the outstanding examples, BeiGene, a Singaporean-invested enterprise located in the Guangzhou Economic Development Zone, has built its large molecule biopharmaceutical production base in the Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, making the company becoming the largest producer of PD-1 monoclonal antibody drugs in China. Siemens Healthineers, established in Shenzhen Nanshan Science and Technology Park, has become the largest R&D and manufacturing base outside Germany after more than 20 years of development.

GBA mainland cities lead foreign investment growth

In the first two months of 2025, the nine cities in the mainland area of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) actually used 21.55 billion yuan of foreign capital, a year-on-year increase of 6.9%, accounting for 92.4% of the total actual foreign capital used in the province.

Among the cities in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong, Shantou, Qingyuan, Yangjiang, Meizhou, and others saw multiple increases in the actual use of foreign capital.

As outstanding performers, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Huizhou are leading the province in utilizing foreign capital.

In the first two months of this year, 1,040 new foreign-invested enterprises were set up in Guangzhou, a year-on-year increase of 4%. The actual use of foreign capital was 7.424 billion yuan, accounting for about one-third of the province. 

According to the 2025 South China Economic Situation Special Report by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China, Guangzhou has been rated as the top investment destination in China for eight consecutive years.

Shenzhen, another outstanding performer, witnessed the establishment of 1,388 new foreign-invested enterprises in the first two months of 2025, with a year-on-year increase of 23.8%. The actual use of foreign capital was 8.16 billion yuan, up 16.0% year-on-year, accounting for 35% of the province. 

In terms of industrial distribution, the actual use of foreign capital in high-tech industries increased by 79.4% year-on-year.

Huizhou, ranking third in the province in the total amount of foreign capital actually used, absorbed 2.141 billion yuan of foreign capital in January-February this year, a year-on-year increase of 110%.