China's "Millennium Business Capital" Guangzhou hosted a roadshow meeting of 2017 Fortune Global Forum in Hong Kong

As reported, the 2017 Fortune Global Forum will take place in Guangzhou on December 6 to 8 with the theme of 'Openness and Innovation: Shaping the Global Economy'.

Cai Chaolin, Vice Mayor of Guangzhou attended the meeting and gave the keynote speech. Cai said that Guangzhou and Hong Kong have seen closer and more fruitful cooperation in the past two decades and will have more promising prospects for future cooperation. Hong Kong, as the bridge for multinationals to invest in Guangzhou and for Guangzhou enterprises to invest globally, has played a very important role in Guangzhou's socioeconomic development. Therefore, Guangzhou regards Hong Kong as an important stop in its global roadshow of the 2017 Fortune Global Forum.

Guangzhou has been an important foreign trading port in China for over 2,000 years, with a reputation for being the "Millennium Business Capital". Now the city is drawing more and more attention from global investors and is on the way to becoming known as the "Modern Commercial Capital".

By the end of 2016, 288 of the world's Fortune Global 500 Companies have had operations in Guangzhou, among which Cisco Systems (China) invested 20 billion RMB in the Cisco (Guangzhou) Smart City project, aiming to build the largest platform of Internet R&D and intelligent operation.

One of the biggest advantages of investment business environment in Guangzhou is its world-class infrastructure. What's more, it has a developed and complete industrial chain, 10 key industries including automobile manufacturing, fine chemical industry, major equipment, trade exhibition, financial insurance, modern logistics, a new generation of information technology, bio medicine, new materials, new energy and environmental protection etc. The production and R&D of the manufacturing industry has ranked number one in China.

The city also has strong support of innovation and entrepreneurship, with 2/3 of the province's universities, 97% of the national key disciplines, all key state laboratories. 2,880,000 "talents" have a college degree or above and there are 1,410,000 technical and managerial personnel.

People pay more attention to the investment boost effect formed by "soft environment" improvement brought about by system reform and government service level's promotion. As for institutional change, China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) Nansha Area of Guangzhou is worth mentioning. It has implemented a series of innovative measures like foreign investment negative list management, cross-border RMB business innovation, financial exchange innovation, shipping logistics industry innovation, deep economic cooperation between HK, Macao and Guangzhou, trade facilitation, government service optimization etc. This area has become the new engine of economic growth, transforming and upgrading as it is forged into a high level "opening-up" gateway hub.

Free Trade Zone (FTZ) Nansha Area of Guangzhou, as an important platform for deepening the Guangzhou-Hong Kong cooperation, has developed 209 reform and innovation initiatives, many of which are at the forefront in China, and is becoming a new benchmark of institutional innovation.