As FDI gets pricey, China rushes to calm frustrated foreign investors

China is stepping up efforts to secure overseas investments with foreign business community as the recent lockdowns have brought "a series of impacts and challenges to domestic and foreign-invested enterprises," a Chinese daily reported.

Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday that Chinese authorities will deploy special task forces and improve communication with foreign firms to help them solve problems. 

“Opening-up is China’s basic national policy. Stable foreign trade and investment are critical to the overall economy and employment,” Li told a meeting of the State Council, reported South China Morning Post

quoting the official Xinhua News Agency.

As part of nation's Zero-Covid policy, China's financial hub Shanghai was completely locked down for two months, a step that made foreign companies more inclined to pull investment from the world's no 2 economy, surveys by business lobby groups showed. 

Huang Feng, chairman of the Shanghai Foreign Investment Association, said, “The impact [of the Shanghai outbreaks on foreign investment] is unprecedented over the past 30 years,” quoted SCMP. 

Foreign direct investments into China rose 26.1 per cent to $74.47 billion in the first four months of 2021, showed official figures. However, now, the multinational companies are less willing to spend in China, Huang said. 

Huang was in charge of the statistics at the foreign investment department of China's commerce ministry from 2011 to 2016. 

In recent weeks, Chinese leaders, while denying that there is an exodus of foreign firms, are putting more emphasis on the concerns of foreign investors and have pledged to support them. 

China’s vice-minister of commerce Wang Shouwen said, “The current pandemic has indeed brought a series of impacts and challenges to domestic and foreign-invested enterprises, which the Chinese government attaches great importance to," the Chinese daily reported.

He has asked foreign firms to 'report their problems directly' to the government, adding that the ministry would focus on helping the companies resume their production.