Foreign investment surges into Guangzhou's fashion and consumer sector, with wholesale and retail businesses experiencing explosive growth. New data shows that utilized foreign capital in these sectors jumped 50.4% year-on-year to 410 million yuan between January and April 2025.

Guangzhou now hosts over 50,000 foreign enterprises, including 362 Fortune 500 companies. The city offers unrivaled consumer reach with a peak urban population of 28 million and an annual net inflow exceeding 500,000 residents. Retail sales from January to April reached RMB 3.76 trillion, growing 4%, the fastest pace among China's tier-1 cities. Its RMB 6 trillion wholesale-retail ecosystem facilitates global sourcing, amplified by duty-free infrastructure. This includes an upcoming downtown duty-free store in the core CBD of Zhujiang New Town, targeting luxury repatriation.

Recent reforms prioritize IP safeguards and customs innovation. The incentives accelerate product launches through expedited permits, rent subsidies, and customs clearance, with authorities pledging further import facilitation for exhibitions. These measures are yielding results: 2,664 new foreign-funded enterprises opened in the first four months of 2025, up 14.9%, attracting 11.54 billion yuan in foreign capital.

Source: GDToday
Editor: Wen Junhua