PepsiCo breaks ground on its first Northwest China food production base in Xi'an on June 12. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]
Since the beginning of this year, Xi'an has made significant strides in deepening its strategic focus on opening-up to achieve new breakthroughs.
Efforts have been directed towards expanding foreign investment inflows, stabilizing the scale of foreign investment, and enhancing the quality of foreign capital utilization.
During the first half of the year, Xi'an attracted $562 million in actual foreign investment, achieving 56.4 percent of its annual target. Meanwhile, the utilized domestic investment of 78.47 billion yuan ($11.04 billion) accounted for 62.6 percent of the annual target.
The proportion of foreign investment in Xi'an's manufacturing sector increased by 46 percentage points compared to the same period last year. The city signed agreements for 81 industrial projects with a total investment of $87.9 billion, a 13.4-percent increase year-on-year.
This trend indicated growing confidence from international manufacturing enterprises in Xi'an as an investment destination.
On June 12, PepsiCo broke ground on its first Northwest China food production base in Xi'an, with an investment of around $1.3 billion. The project is expected to commence trial operations in September next year, with an estimated production capacity of 25,000 metric tons. This marks PepsiCo's fifth major investment in China over the past five years.
Xi'an helped PepsiCo establish the base through both business negotiations and on-site support. The entire process, from expressing an intent to cooperate to signing the formal investment agreement, took only two months, and construction began just two months after the signing.
This year, Xi'an has conducted investment promotion activities in more than 10 cities and countries, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Suzhou, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Nanjing, as well as in Kazakhstan, South Korea, Norway, Serbia, Italy, and Hungary.
Xi'an has attracted a series of foreign enterprises and projects, including German ZF Friedrichshafen, US PepsiCo, Swedish IKEA, US Sam's Club, and German Knorr-Bremse's rail transit production base.
New commercial formats like Sam's Club (the first in Northwest China) and Domino's Pizza, along with globally renowned foreign brands, continue to strengthen their presence in Xi'an.