A view of the Lujiazui area in Shanghai Photo: VCG

A joint report released on Wednesday showed that China continues to lead in the comprehensive trust index, ranking first among all countries surveyed.

The report, named 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, is an effort between Edelman, a global communications firm and the National Image Research Center at Tsinghua University. 
The report said that in 2024, the average comprehensive trust index of the 28 surveyed countries is 55, the average comprehensive trust index of developing countries is 63, and the average comprehensive trust index of developed countries is 49. 

Among them, China's comprehensive trust index is 79, ranking first, and belonging to the trusted range index from 60 to100. 

In comparison, the US' comprehensive trust index is 46, ranking 23rd, followed by Japan's 39, ranking 27th and the UK ranking the 28th with the index of 39 as well.
Those indexes from 1 to 49 belong to the untrusted range.

Over the past 10 years, respondents' trust in major foreign companies has generally declined.

Taking Chinese, American, and German companies as examples, German and American companies have seen a greater decline in trust compared to Chinese companies. 
Different from the general downward trend of trust, China's trust in Southeast Asia has improved significantly compared with 10 years ago. The trust of US companies in the same region has dropped significantly. 

Overall, people in Southeast Asia trust Chinese companies over US businesses. 

Compared with last year, the trust level of Chinese companies in most countries and regions has shown an increase, especially in India, Nigeria, Malaysia and other countries, which saw gradually improving levels of trust.

In the past five years, the Chinese people's trust in foreign companies has declined, and the decline in trust in Japanese companies has been most obvious.
In 2024, the Chinese people will trust companies from Germany, France and Saudi Arabia more.

It is the 24th annual trust and credibility survey conducted by Edelman. 

The study has been created using interviews with respondents from 28 countries around the world, conducting research on four types of institutions: businesses, governments, non-governmental organizations, and media. 

Facing the uncertain global environment where global economy and innovation are under great pressure, the Chinese government and enterprises have shown strong resilience, said Fan Hong, director of the National Image Research Center at Tsinghua University.

"China continuing leading the comprehensive trust index shows that the Chinese government and enterprises have taken proactive actions in promoting technological development, empowering industrial upgrading, and have engaged in open communication with the public, thus winning widespread trust and support from the people," Fan said.

The technological progress is promoting the accelerated transformation of global industrial society, and China's independent capabilities and international competitiveness in the field of technological innovation have become increasingly prominent, Ed Williams, CEO of Edelman EMEA said during the event.

Global Times