BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) — “A great economic and industrial opportunity.” This is how Maria Jesus Lorenzana, regional minister of financial system and business of Spain’s Galicia, described a deliberate electrical car manufacturing facility challenge by Chinese automaker SAIC Motor within the area, which may develop into the corporate’s first such facility in Europe.
Hailed as one of many “most significant industrial investments Galicia has seen in decades,” the challenge is predicted to contain an preliminary funding of about 200 million euros (about 232 million U.S. {dollars}) and create over 2,300 jobs with an annual capability of roughly 120,000 automobiles, native authorities introduced earlier this month.
Beyond funding, officers see the challenge, which can even embody an industrial zone for car meeting and transportation, as a catalyst for broader industrial improvement. Lorenzana mentioned it may assist foster superior manufacturing, increase native element provide and strengthen logistics capabilities in a area with a protracted automotive custom.
Such optimism just isn’t with out precedent. In Barcelona, a partnership between Chinese automaker Chery and Spanish model Ebro has introduced a former Nissan plant within the Zona Franca industrial zone again to life, which sat idle for years after the Japanese auto producer’s 2021 exit left native employees ready for reemployment alternatives.
Rather than erasing an area model, the partnership is constructed round it. Chery introduced its manufacturing experience whereas Ebro retained its Spanish identification, with a part of manufacturing carried out below the Ebro model. The three way partnership has employed a minimum of 1,000 employees and has been rolling out new-energy automobiles tailor-made to the European market since 2024.
“Thanks to cooperation among institutions, unions, investors and Chery, we are giving life to a new generation of vehicles that blend historical legacy with innovation,” mentioned Rafael Ruiz, president of Ebro EV Motors.
These developments come amid recurring concern that the abroad enlargement of Chinese firms may intensify competitors in international markets. Industry specialists, nevertheless, say Chinese firms are more and more appearing not solely as traders and producers, but in addition as companions in job creation, industrial upgrading and financial transformation.
By the top of 2025, China had greater than 50,000 abroad enterprises working throughout 190 international locations and areas, based on the commerce ministry. In 2024 alone, abroad Chinese firms generated a mixed income of three.6 trillion U.S. {dollars} and paid 82.1 billion {dollars} in taxes to host economies, whereas using 5.02 million individuals at year-end, of whom about two-thirds had been native hires.
A structural shift can be underway: a survey report by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, as an illustration, revealed that the share of producing in China’s direct funding in Latin America and the Caribbean had risen sharply from 1.94 p.c in 2000-2004 to 25.82 p.c in 2020-2025.
Meanwhile, greenfield investments, which construct new services and generate extra jobs per transaction, have elevated from lower than 1 / 4 of Chinese funding within the area throughout 2015-2019 to greater than half in 2020-2025, reflecting a deeper and extra productive engagement with host economies, the survey discovered.
Wei Jianguo, China’s former vice minister of commerce, mentioned outbound Chinese companies have moved past remoted factories and standalone initiatives towards industrial clusters, coordinated provide chains and localized operations.
Increasingly, a mannequin combining “Chinese technology, global creation and local services” is gaining traction in host international locations as firms deepen integration with native economies and improvement methods, Wei famous.
In Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor, an air-conditioner manufacturing facility of Chinese residence equipment big Midea Group rolls out a completed unit each six seconds for markets throughout Southeast Asia, Europe and North America, with annual capability exceeding 5 million items.
Such scale is made doable by a 5G-enabled manufacturing community, autonomous cellular robots and superior digital administration techniques, which helped the ability earn recognition as a World Economic Forum-certified “lighthouse factory” in 2025, a designation for producers that excel in deploying superior applied sciences.
The manufacturing facility has established partnerships with 691 native suppliers, and 97.8 p.c of its workforce comes from Southeast Asia, based on Midea. It constructed an AI-powered coaching system for native staff to deal with language obstacles, and lower vitality consumption per unit by 40.2 p.c and carbon emissions by 68.3 p.c by way of a photo voltaic microgrid.
“Through cooperation with Chinese companies, we have learned the application experience of 5G new technology,” mentioned Asnee Wipatawate, an government at Thai cellular operator AIS, which helped construct a devoted 5G community for Midea, whereas anticipating to use this expertise to assist extra Thai firms of their digital transformation course of.
In the digital sphere, the function of Chinese firms is changing into extra seen. In Kenya, a digital fee platform constructed with Chinese know-how has reached round 70 p.c of its grownup inhabitants, selling monetary inclusion whereas serving to small companies and rural communities take part within the digital financial system.
Chinese cloud and AI suppliers are additionally increasing their footprint, notably in rising markets, giving native companies entry to digital infrastructure that was beforehand out of attain. As of January, Alibaba’s Qwen household of AI fashions had recorded 700 million downloads on the Hugging Face collaborative AI platform, making it the most well-liked open-source AI system worldwide.
China’s increasing abroad company presence is prone to form the following part of globalization, mentioned Wei, who expects the worldwide commerce and funding panorama to develop into extra balanced and inclusive sooner or later.
“Chinese companies are evolving from participants to pacesetters, and from simply going abroad to becoming more deeply integrated into local economies,” he mentioned. “In doing so, they are writing a new chapter in their globalization journey.”