A picture of TEDA [Photo/teda.gov.cn]

In the past 34 years, Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA) has introduced 3,231 foreign investment projects from 79 countries and regions, with a total investment of $106 billion.

TEDA achieved a GDP growth of 8.2 percent in 2018. The three major industries of automobile, equipment and biomedicine reached double-digit growth.

At the same time, the regional places have emphasized on optimizing structure and adding new growth drivers with a healthier and more sustainable development philosophy.

Established in TEDA in July 2012, Volkswagen Automatic Transmission (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. (VWATJ) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Group. It is now an important base for the group to expand its market in China. It focuses on the production of highly advanced transmission products such as Q380 and DQ500, and has played an important supporting role in improving the automobile industry chain in the zone.

A picture of Volkswagen's factory in TEDA [Photo/teda.gov.cn]

With the launch of TNGA global flagship model, AVALON, in Tianjin by FAW Toyota which is also the first Toyota TNGA factory overseas, the most advanced automobile manufacturing technology has been updated in TEDA.

Supportive policy and lower cost are the underlined reasons of why Volkswagen chose Tianjin as the new base for building the factory.

"Volkswagen comprehensively evaluated five cities for the place to build a new transmission plant, and two most important factors, financial costs and policy support which also refers to the soft environment, were the determinant factors for settling in Tianjin," Huang Lei, manager of Finance and Corporate Foreign Affairs, Volkswagen Automatic Transmission (Tianjin) Co., Ltd said.

A picture of Volkswagen's factory in TEDA [Photo/teda.gov.cn]

Nestlé not only established a production base in TEDA in 1994, but also set up a quality testing center in 1995 which is responsible for food safety and quality testing for China, as well as the Asia-Africa regions.

Nestlé China Chairman and CEO Luo Shide said that the Foreign Investment Law has made it easier for foreign investors to understand China by unifying the standards of foreign-invested enterprises.

"The law will strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights of investment companies in China. This will increase the benefits of Nestlé, which has always been the first driver of innovation. At present, we have several factories in Tianjin producing ice cream and candy. The latest generation of high-tech pet food Purina is also produced by the factory in TEDA. Tianjin has become a strategic development city of Nestlé. With continuous improvement of business environment under the government efforts, we will achieve continued success in Tianjin."