Global Times: Xi's letter inspires confidence among Danish, EU businesses

BEIJING, May 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Multiple Danish businesses on Friday reaffirmed their confidence in growth and further cooperation with China amid optimism about the economic prospects and vast opportunities of the world's second-largest economy, as Chinese President Xi Jinping replied to a letter from the founder of the Danish Chamber of Commerce in China.

In the letter, Xi encouraged the chamber and its member enterprises to make new contributions to enhancing China-Denmark and China-Europe friendship and deepening mutually beneficial cooperation. Xi expressed appreciation for the founder's deep affection for China and the confidence of Danish enterprises in China regarding the country's future development, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

China has been and will remain an ideal, secure and promising destination for foreign investors. Believing in China is believing in a better tomorrow, and investing in China is investing in the future, Xi said in the letter.

President Xi's reply drew enthusiastic and positive responses among Danish and European businesses that pay close attention to China-EU economic and trade cooperation.

Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, CEO of Denmark-headquartered healthcare company Novo Nordisk, told the Global Times on Friday, "When considering the number of people reached with our life-changing medicines, China stands as our largest market, and our ambition is to continue accelerating innovation and working with partners in our joint fight against serious chronic diseases."

After entering the Chinese market nearly 30 years ago, Danfoss has witnessed firsthand the rapid growth of China's economy and takes great pride in having contributed to this remarkable progress, Xu Yang, President of Danfoss China and Head of Drives China Division, told the Global Times in a statement on Friday, stressing firm commitment to investing in China and growing together.

As China advances high-quality development and fosters new quality productive forces, the country is generating enormous opportunities in green development - offering sustained growth potential for Danfoss's business, Xu said. In 2024, for example, Danfoss saw strong growth in several key sectors in China, including data centers, semiconductors, marine, and energy storage. Among them, business related to data centers grew by 70 percent, while the marine sector recorded a 29 percent increase.

At the same time, China is rapidly emerging as an increasingly innovative nation, with continuous improvements in intellectual property protection, said Xu, noting that Danfoss is committed to shifting from "Made in China" to "Innovated in China" - a transition that will unlock even more opportunities for Danfoss and other Danish enterprises.

Intensive exchanges

Xi expressed his hope that the Danish Chamber of Commerce in China and its member enterprises will continue to play the role of a bridge between China and Denmark as well as China and Europe, and contribute to enhancing mutual understanding and friendship, as well as deepening mutually beneficial cooperation between the two sides.

As China and the EU are both important economies with high complementarity, the two sides should strengthen economic and trade cooperation and jointly safeguard the WTO-centered multilateral trading system against the backdrop of growing economic uncertainties worldwide and monumental challenges faced by the international trading system, Zhang Jian, vice president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Friday.

Chinese electric-vehicle giant BYD will open a European center in Hungary, creating 2,000 new jobs, the Hungary government said on Thursday, Fortune reported.

At a press conference on Thursday announcing the decision, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban highlighted China's role as a world leader in electromobility technology, while stressing that partnership is essential: "We cannot succeed on our own. Only Hungarian-Chinese cooperation can make us competitive," local media outlet Budapest Times reported, citing Orban as saying.

Since the beginning of this year, there have been frequent high-level exchanges between China and Europe. At the invitation of Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Denmark Lars Lokke Rasmussen will pay an official visit to China from May 17 to 20, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced Thursday.

While the China-EU Working Group on Financial Cooperation held its second meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday in Brussels, the 10th China-France High Level Economic and Financial Dialogue was held in France on Thursday.

Organized by the EU Delegation to China, a cooperation conference was held in Beijing on Wednesday, bringing together about 500 participants from both sides. Speaking at the conference, EU Ambassador to China Jorge Toledo said that this 50th anniversary is a golden opportunity to take stock of what has happened in the past five decades between the EU and China, examine the current challenges and together lay a solid foundation for the future.

"The frequent dialogues, exchanges and cooperation between China and the EU indicate that under the current international landscape, the EU has become increasingly aware of China's importance for the EU and the world as a whole in aspects including maintaining global order and multilateralism," Zhang said.

From the perspective of the EU's own interests and China-EU relations, the EU should look at China with a more open, objective and pragmatic attitude, he said, noting that there is vast room for win-win China-EU cooperation if the EU can abandon its ideological prejudice and reject disruption from some third parties like the US.

Injecting certainty into world

The more risks the global economy faces, the greater the need to address challenges through openness, and bridge differences through cooperation, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian said at a regular press conference on Friday.

"China has all along upheld high-standard opening up and a transparent, stable and predictable policy environment. We have been committed to providing foreign businesses with a pro-business environment that is market-oriented, law-based and world-class, sharing opportunities of our mega-size market with the world, and promoting a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization," Lin said, stressing "An open China is always a source of opportunity for the rest of the world."

Amid continuous efforts to ease foreign investment restrictions and improve its business environment, China remains a top destination for transnational investment. The number of foreign-funded companies in China had grown to nearly 1.24 million by 2024, with actual utilized foreign investment amounting to 20.6 trillion yuan ($2.86 trillion), official data showed.

In recent years, China's economic policies have been relatively stable, while Chinese authorities expressed multiple times the provision of support for effectively hedging against external shocks and maintaining the economy's stable growth. I believe this is attractive for multinationals and we will see foreign capital shift to Asia and China this year, Denis Depoux, global managing director of consulting firm Roland Berger, told the Global Times.

UBS analysts led by Wang Tao wrote in a note sent to the Global Times on Friday that they upgrade China's GDP forecast for 2025 to 4 percent from 3.4 percent previously, citing less drag from net exports and strengthening domestic investment and consumption.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/1334251.shtml

SOURCE Global Times