BEIJING — China has not seen and will not see large-scale withdrawal of foreign investment despite the coronavirus impact on foreign businesses in China, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said on April 16.

Foreign firms are still bullish on China, and their confidence and determination in long-term business development in China have not changed, said MOC spokesperson Gao Feng.

No country can arbitrarily change the global supply chains, said Gao, adding that currently, globalization has been met with undertow, but the overall trend will not change.

China will continue to open its door wider to the world, loosen market access, further expand import, and promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, said Gao.

The country is also ramping up efforts to bolster the stability of foreign investment by promoting work resumption of foreign-funded firms and projects.

Some 72.8 percent of key foreign-invested firms had recovered over 70 percent of work capacity as of April 14, up 0.9 percentage points compared with last week.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland fell 10.8 percent year-on-year in the first quarter influenced by the novel coronavirus outbreak, data from the MOC showed.

But the decline of FDI in March was 11.5 percentage points narrower than that in February, and foreign investment in high-tech services surged 15.5 percent year-on-year in the first three months.