On August 13, The State Council issued the Opinions on Further Optimizing the Foreign Investment Environment and Increasing Efforts to Attract Foreign Investment, which put forward 24 measures (hereinafter referred to as the “24 Measures to attract Foreign Investment”) in six aspects, including improving the quality of utilizing foreign investment and guaranteeing the national treatment of foreign-invested enterprises, to boost the confidence of foreign investment. We will attract more high-quality foreign investment into the Chinese market. So, what is the attitude of foreign enterprises towards the Chinese market?

On August 18, Sugiyama, executive officer of intelligent manufacturing strategy of Mitsubishi Electric Automation (China) Co., LTD., said in an interview with a reporter of the China Times: “I came to Shanghai, China, in April last year, and for more than a year now, I feel the speed of development of China’s manufacturing industry is very fast. The ultimate goal of manufacturing is how to produce more and better products faster and at lower costs, which is the key to competition. I found that Chinese companies are very fast in all aspects of product development, design and production, which is unmatched by other countries. Mitsubishi Electric Automation customers around the world, no matter what kind of enterprise as long as the need to save energy and cost, we can provide customers with the best solution. There is no doubt that the center of the world’s manufacturing industry is still China, and the potential of China’s manufacturing industry is very large in the future, and China’s proposed ‘dual carbon’ strategy provides a broader market and business opportunities for foreign enterprises represented by Mitsubishi Electric.”

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Japan’s Mitsubishi Electric Co., LTD., as one of the world’s top 500 giants, has been established for more than 100 years. In the turnover of all businesses of Mitsubishi Electric, industrial automation business accounts for the highest proportion, of which China is the most important overseas market for Mitsubishi Electric industrial automation business. As the promoter of Mitsubishi Electric’s industrial automation business in China, Mitsubishi Electric Automation has been established for nearly 20 years, and their views on the Chinese market undoubtedly have a certain benchmarking role.

Have a soft spot for China

It can be said that Mitsubishi Electric Automation has always been fond of the Chinese market.

Sugiyama, as the company’s intelligent manufacturing Strategy executive, has 25 years of automation experience. He was responsible for the global promotion of Mitsubishi Electric’s intelligent manufacturing solution “e-F@ctory”. During his work in the United States, he was responsible for the introduction of new engine plants of the three major American automobile companies, and worked in Europe for 6 years to promote the introduction of intelligent manufacturing solutions to a large number of customers. Although he only came to China in 2022, Sugiyama said that his mission in China is to help Chinese manufacturers use digital manufacturing technology to achieve smart manufacturing.

This mission is undoubtedly the current implementation of China’s “double carbon” strategy coincides, perhaps it is the in-depth promotion of China’s “double carbon” strategy makes Sugiyama has always been China’s “deep farming” manufacturing green transformation of big business opportunities, especially China’s photovoltaic, lithium batteries, chips, packaging and other representatives of the manufacturing transformation and upgrading, Mitsubishi Electric accumulated energy saving experience is undoubtedly very useful.

“Regarding the changes in global manufacturing in recent years, I think in the past, Chinese manufacturing was characterized by low prices, but in recent years, the cost of employing people in China is rising, and sometimes it may be cheaper to produce in Southeast Asia or Japan.” The goal of the future development of China’s manufacturing industry is not only to show better performance in cost, but also in various indicators including quality and performance; On the other hand, the trend of Chinese manufacturing companies going global is very clear. In recent years, they have set up factories around the world, just as Japanese companies did in the past, and they are forming a large number of truly international companies.” When talking about the development trend of China’s high-end manufacturing industry, Sugiyama said frankly.

Sugiyama also further said that Mitsubishi Electric Automation will also follow these companies to go out and provide more efficient production efficiency and energy saving measures for Chinese enterprises to expand in overseas markets.

“Mitsubishi Electric Automation has a very rich experience, our e-F@ctory concept has been introduced for 20 years, and more than 50,000 systems have been implemented worldwide. Many enterprises on the understanding of intelligent manufacturing there are still many places are not in place, we have a wealth of experience in this area, confident to provide customers with appropriate advice; The second is the technical strength of Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Electric’s number of patent applications last year ranked fourth in the world and first in Japan. We are actively investing in manufacturing AI, and the biggest feature of Mitsubishi Electric’s AI is ease of use. In the development, we consciously integrate AI functions into the product, so that customers can easily use these functions even if they do not know AI related knowledge. The biggest advantage of Mitsubishi Electric lies in our global partners and intelligent manufacturing ecosystem, which has a wide range of business related to intelligent manufacturing and must be realized in cooperation with IT systems, products, SI and other related enterprises. Mitsubishi Electric’s e-F@ctory Alliance has more than 1,000 partners, and we work with our partners to provide the best solutions for our customers.” Sugiyama said.