GUANGZHOU — Multinational enterprises are anticipating exciting opportunities in China as the country continues to deepen its opening-up, even as the COVID-19 outbreak is slowing down the global economic momentum.

Despite a grim and complex economic situation both domestically and globally this year due to the novel coronavirus epidemic, China has not decelerated its efforts in promoting reform and development through opening-up. Rather, the country has made advances in more fields and embraced deeper level reforms.

China has continuously cut the number of sectors and businesses that are off-limits for investment in its negative list for market access in recent years, providing huge opportunities for foreign companies and stimulating the vitality of market entities.

China's new dual-circulation development pattern will not only help protect the Chinese economy from the volatility of external markets but also drive future economic development in a more balanced and sustainable way. For foreign investors, these manifest a sign of reassurance of China's strong recovery potential and future sustainable growth, according to Merlin Swire, chairman of Swire Pacific Ltd.

"As committed investors, we welcome China's ongoing policy of higher-level opening-up. The new Foreign Investment Law, which came into effect early this year, offers greater protection for investors and ensures a more level playing field and optimized business environment for foreign firms like Swire," Swire said.

In addition to the Swire Group, many other foreign enterprises have increased their capital and production in China.

In the first three quarters of this year, China's paid-in foreign investment saw a year-on-year increase of 2.5 percent to $103.26 billion, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

As China is committed to opening its door wider to the rest of the world, multinational businesses are committed to deepening their development footprints in the country as well.

From initial drug sales to the formation of a complete industrial chain, including research and development, production and marketing, Roche Pharma China's business has made great progress along with China's economic development and medical reform in the past 26 years.

Hong Chow, CEO of Roche Pharma in China, said, besides the huge market potential, China has a large number of medical and research institutions, as well as top scientists, making it a rich source of innovation and talent.

Chow noted that in the future, stronger intellectual property protection and a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment would accelerate the conversion of innovative achievements into products in China, benefiting the people and enabling sustainable development of enterprises.

In the process of China's opening-up to a higher level, multinational enterprises will play a crucial role and gain greater opportunities, according to Yun Mingqing, vice-president of the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy.

"We should further enhance the sense of cooperation and development, strengthen mutual understanding and trust, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and carry out economic and technological cooperation at various levels, in wider areas and all directions," Yun said.