Nantong, a city in east China's Jiangsu province will further cooperate with Japanese-funded enterprises in an attempt to push its economic and trade cooperation with Japan to a new level. Xu Huimin, mayor of Nantong City, will pay a visit to Japan from May 28-31 to carry out economic and trade exchange activities. Nantong plans to strengthen cooperation with Japanese-funded enterprises in advanced manufacturing, coastal port industries and modern service industries, and quicken the pace to build itself into a hub gathering Japanese-funded enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta region. Japan has become the second largest source of foreign investment and the fourth largest trading partner of Nantong. Nantong is home to 527 Japanese-funded enterprises, ranking third in Jiangsu in terms of the number of Japanese-funded firms. They include 17 Fortune Global 500 companies, of which Nantong COSCO KHI Ship Engineering Co., Ltd. (NACKS) has become China's first ship intelligent manufacturing demonstration enterprise and TORAY Fibers Research Centre is identified as one of functional R&D institutions of multinational companies in Jiangsu. In recent years, Japanese-funded companies gained a strong foothold in Nantong by expanding investment channels and improving R&D and management. In the future, Nantong will prioritize economic exchanges with Japanese-funded companies to advance its cooperation with Japan. Nantong boasts an excellent geographical position, a vast market and unique logistics conditions, and has established economic and trade relations with 65 Belt and Road countries and regions. In 2018, Nantong reported GDP of 842.7 billion yuan, ranking 19th in China's large and medium-sized cities. The city chalked up a foreign trade volume of 38.6 billion US dollars in 2018. It has established sister-city relations with 24 foreign cities, including Japan's Toyohashi City. In terms of resource reserve and industrial basis, Nantong has a strong complementarity and relevance with Japanese-funded enterprises and is expected to further enhance cooperation with these enterprises in coastal port industries, advanced manufacturing, technology and talents, and modern service industries. The city will fully capitalize on its advantages in location and resource to enhance the supporting level of the upstream and downstream industrial chains, accelerate the gathering and development of Japanese-funded firms, and further improve services in the fields of living, housing and education in a bid to support Japanese-funded enterprises to become bigger and stronger and further tap into the Chinese market. SOURCE: Nantong Government