STORY: Investing in China brings opportunities for prominent European companies
SHOOTING TIME: March 14 & 21, 2024/File
DATELINE: April 10, 2024
LENGTH: 00:02:24
LOCATION: TIANJIN/NANCHANG, China
CATEGORY: ECONOMY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of China
2. various of Novo Nordisk
3. SOUNDBITE 1 (Chinese): CHRISTINE ZHOU, Senior vice president of Novo Nordisk
4. various of Fresenius Kabi
5. SOUNDBITE 2 (English): CHRISTIAN HAUER, Member of management board of Fresenius Kabi and president of Fresenius Kabi MedTech

STORYLINE:

Some prominent European companies have hailed China's efforts in supporting foreign investors and expressed their willingness to share future opportunities with the vibrant Chinese market.

Over the years, China has sped up the implementation of a series of concrete measures, including reducing the negative list for foreign investment and implementing the Foreign Investment Law, to extend the benefits of its ongoing opening-up policy to more foreign companies.

Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical giant, has increased investment in Tianjin.

Since founded in 1994, its subsidiary in China has expanded the business across a whole value chain, including production, research and development, and commercial operations.

The company announced an additional investment in an expansion project at its production base in Tianjin of about 4 billion yuan (about 553 mln USD) last month.

SOUNDBITE 1 (Chinese): CHRISTINE ZHOU, Senior vice president of Novo Nordisk
"China has always been an important market for Novo Nordisk. We have a whole industrial chain layout here. We truly feel the convenience brought by a series of measures such as the whole-process, all-round and convenient services, as well as the opportunities in the biomedical field (in China), which has strengthened our confidence in future development."
For German healthcare conglomerate Fresenius Kabi, its subsidiary in China's Nanchang has become an important R&D and production base of medical devices.

Based in a town near Frankfurt in Germany, Fresenius Kabi started investing in Nanchang in 2002.

Over the past 22 years, the Nanchang subsidiary has been expanded five times, with the total investment reaching nearly 600 mln yuan (about 82.9 mln USD).

In 2023, the Nanchang subsidiary's main business revenue hit 536 million yuan (about 74 mln USD), and the export value increased by 6.8 percent compared with 2022.

SOUNDBITE 2 (English): CHRISTIAN HAUER, Member of management board of Fresenius Kabi and president of Fresenius Kabi MedTech
"We have now decided to centralize everything here in Nanchang because it's much more competitive. (Also) China is a very competitive country when it comes to manufacturing, but also when it comes to R&D.
I think it (the business environment) is good. I think it's positive. As I said, there is growth. We hear also from our customers' good feedback. The market is strong. The market is growing. We see additional opportunities to drive our business here in the Chinese market."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Tianjin/Nanchang, China.
(XHTV)