CIIE Photo:VCG

China has been expanding opening-up during the past 40 years, as it is committed to providing foreign investors with a market-oriented, legalized and internationalized business environment, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of China's Foreign Ministry, said on Monday.

Zhao's remarks came after German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock asserted at an event held by local media Süddeutsche Zeitung that foreign companies cannot invest in key infrastructure facilities in China, including airports, ports and power grids. She alleged that "rich G77 members" such as China and Saudi Arabia are pressuring other countries to "extract absolute benefits".

Zhao said that the statements by the German government official do not correspond with the facts. 

China is not a member of G77. As the largest developing economy, China has always stood on the side of the developing countries, firmly defended their common interests and provided assistance within its capacity for their development to achieve mutual benefit, instead of seizing private benefits by exerting pressure on developing countries, as some countries have done, Zhao noted.

The spokesperson added that China keeps opening-up in the fields of airports, ports and telecommunications. For instance, Denmark's Maersk, one of the world's largest shipping groups, has invested in terminals in Chinese port cities including Dalian, Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai and Shenzhen. It also acquired a 25-percent stake in a 4.3 billion yuan ($597.8 million) project in Ningbo Port in East China's Zhejiang Province in 2012.

According to a report released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, as of June 2020, a total of 266 foreign-invested telecom enterprises had been approved in China.

"We have always maintained that any commentary should respect the basic facts and take an objective and impartial position, rather than making accusations based on misinformation or subjective speculation," Zhao said.

In response to recent remarks by some German politicians that German companies should reduce their dependence on China, Zhao said the so-called "dependence on China" is a false proposition, as cooperation is always mutually beneficial, and "dependence" is always mutual.

"We are willing to further deepen cooperation and share opportunities with countries around the world," Zhao said.

In the first 10 months of this year, foreign direct investment from Germany rose by 95.8 percent, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

During German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's trip to Beijing earlier this month, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Scholz jointly met with representatives of the Chinese and German business communities in Beijing.

Businesses of the two countries enjoy longstanding cooperation, and bilateral economic and trade ties have long been deeply integrated. Severing those ties and decoupling are simply impossible, Li said.

China has been Germany's biggest trade partner for the past six years, with the value exceeding 245 billion euros ($246 billion) in 2021. 

Global Times