China reaffirms commitment to foreign investment, strengthening economic ties

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) is committed to high-level opening-up to deepen economic cooperation and attract foreign investment, and will continue supporting foreign-invested enterprises, a spokesman said Thursday.

At a press conference in Beijing, MOFCOM spokesman He Yadong said that the ministry supports the development of foreign-invested enterprises in China by expanding opening up, maintaining fair market competition, and strengthening service guarantees.

The ministry will accelerate the implementation of foreign investment pilot projects such as cloud computing, biotechnology, and wholly foreign-owned hospitals. It will also promote the revision and reduction of the negative list for market access, and continue to clear the hidden barriers outside the list to ensure both easy access and operation for foreign-invested companies.

"We will work with relevant departments to ensure that products of foreign-invested enterprises produced in China can participate equally in government procurement in accordance with the law, and support foreign-invested enterprises' equal participation in supportive programs such as large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-in. We also encourage foreign-invested enterprises to actively participate in China's standard formulation and revision work," He said.

"We will give full play to the role of the ministry's special working group on key foreign investment projects, organize and implement the inspection program to ensure service guarantee to foreign-invested enterprises. We will continue to hold roundtable meetings for foreign-invested enterprise every month, and focus on their key concerns to improve the effectiveness of the roundtable meetings," said the spokesman.

He also voiced confidence that foreign-invested enterprises in China will remain resilient and continue to thrive.

"China is a fertile ground for foreign-invested enterprises to invest and start businesses. We believe that with the implementation of various measures, the development of foreign-invested enterprises in China will get better and better," he said.

China reaffirms commitment to foreign investment, strengthening economic ties

U.S. President Donald Trump's rollout of sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" may lead to global economic recession and will exacerbate inflation in the country, said a Spanish scholar.

Amid widespread opposition, Trump on Wednesday signed two executive orders, imposing a 10-percent "minimum baseline tariff" on all imported goods and higher rates on certain trading partners.

Felix Valdivieso, a professor at IE Business School, told China Central Television (CCTV) that following the imposition of the tariffs, all consumers in the world will feel the pinch.

"These measures will have global economic impacts and may even lead to a recession. Analysts at Moody's Ratings have pointed out that these tariffs will drive up prices. Price increases will directly affect consumers' personal income and spending power, as well as their purchasing power," Valdivieso said.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday announced his government will implement a 14.1 billion euro plan to support the economy in the face of Trump's tariffs.

He called the tariffs a "unilateral attack", saying they will harm the interests of people and businesses in both the EU and the United States itself, an opinion shared by Valdivieso.

"In other words, the U.S. is trying to make money by imposing tariffs, which will also drive up prices of domestic products. According to estimates by American analysts, the price of each car in the U.S. will go up by about 1,000 to 2,000 U.S. dollars after the tariffs are imposed. With car exports to the U.S. blocked, there will be two consequences for Europe. One is that Europe will have to find other markets to sell cars. The other is that it will have to bear the consequences of the decline in car sales in some way, so it has to reduce car production lines and lay off employees," he said.

Trump's tariffs may lead to global recession, exacerbate US inflation: Spanish scholar