A view of Shanghai's Lujiazui area Photo: VCG

 
Several foreign companies have recently released their financial reports, with China's contribution in the spotlight. The growth reflected the enormous potential and attractiveness of the Chinese market, as well as the country's continued opening-up, experts said.

Starbucks China on Wednesday announced its third-quarter results, revealing net income of $733.8 million, up 5 percent quarter-on-quarter. 

During the reporting period, which ended on June 30, Starbucks opened 213 new stores, a year-on-year increase of about 13 percent. It has 7,306 stores in more than 900 county-level markets in China and it expects to have record-breaking new store openings in the current fiscal year, the Global Times learned from the company.

"We remain focused on driving sequential growth in key business metrics, continuing to invest for the long term in China, and are confident in the long-term growth opportunities in the Chinese market," Starbucks China's Co-CEO Liu Wenjuan told the Global Times in a statement.

US chipmaker Qualcomm recorded more than 50 percent year-on-year revenue growth from Chinese smartphone makers in the April-June quarter, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) features, the Nikkei reported.

Growing demand for AI features in smartphones fueled sales, the US chipmaker said on Wednesday, the Nikkei reported.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said during an earnings call that he expected several Chinese handset makers to launch flagship phones with AI features soon.

McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski confirmed during a conference call on Monday that the company is on track to open 1,000 new restaurants in China this year and the returns from new stores are good.

The increasing presence of foreign businesses in China is a clear indication of the country's attractive business environment and promising economic prospects, experts said.

"China's steady expansion of institutional opening-up, along with the continued reduction of the negative list for foreign investment in manufacturing and services, demonstrate a commitment to attracting foreign investment and promoting economic stability," Wu Chaoming, a deputy head of the Chasing Research Institute, told the Global Times on Thursday.

It is anticipated that further policies will be introduced, and the ongoing efforts to open the Chinese market will likely attract more foreign businesses to invest in China, Wu said.

The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee recently held a meeting, setting out economic priorities for the second half of 2024, and further emphasized advancing high-level opening-up.

It is essential to make further efforts for creating a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based and internationalized. Steady progress should be made in expanding institutional opening-up, requirements should be implemented to gradually eliminate restrictions on access for foreign investment in the manufacturing sector, and a new round of pilot measures should be carried out to expand the opening-up of the services sector, so as to promote a steady increase in the utilization of foreign capital, according to the meeting.

In the first half of the year, China continued to attract a significant amount of foreign investment, with 26,870 new foreign-invested enterprises established, up 14.2 percent year-on-year. The country received nearly 500 billion yuan ($69.02 billion) in foreign investment in the first six months.