STORY: Retreat or reinforcement? Decoding foreign investment in China
SHOOTING TIME: Recent footage
DATELINE: April 27, 2024
LENGTH: 00:01:48
LOCATION: Beijing/SHANGHAI/RUGAO, China
CATEGORY: ECONOMY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of Shanghai
2. various of Mercedes-Benz
3. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): HUBERTUS TROSKA, Member of Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG
4. various of Swedish truck maker Scania
5. SOUNDBITE 2 (English): MATS HARBORN, President of Scania China Group
6. various of city views

STORYLINE:

Germany's leading luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz on April 19 inaugurated a new building as an upgrade of its R&D center in the metropolis.

The center enables efficient software and hardware development and comprehensive environment simulation, facilitating testing of End-to-End, OTA, and V2X functions.

SOUNDBITE 1 (English): HUBERTUS TROSKA, Member of Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG
"Mercedes-Benz is very confident about China, both the economy and the market. This is the biggest and fastest-growing market in the world, and we've been here for many years. The relations with China are super important. The German economy and the Chinese economy are great trade partners."

Construction of workshops of Swedish truck maker Scania is in full swing in Rugao City Jiangsu Province, China.

The new factory is expected to launch production in 2025 and effectively raise the company's global production capacity, with an annual output of 50,000 trucks.

SOUNDBITE 2 (English): MATS HARBORN, President of Scania China Group
"It's all taking shape, and it's happening amazingly fast. It will produce Scania trucks for China and for export. As you can see from our big investment, we attach a lot of importance to the China market. We believe very much in the transformation of the Chinese economy that is now going on away from a focus on quantity to what focus on quality, sustainability and efficiency and that's exactly where our products play a very important role."

Since the start of this year, foreign businesspeople have been flocking to China in hope of leveraging new business opportunities.

From January to March, some 12,000 new foreign-invested firms were set up across China, up 20.7 percent year on year.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Beijing/SHANGHAI/RUGAO, China.
(XHTV)