Cloud signing ceremony marks 90.4 billion Tianjin investment plan

A grand "cloud signing" ceremony with a total hefty investment of 90.4 billion yuan ($12.8 billion) was hammered down in North China's municipality of Tianjin on Wednesday.

New projects range from intelligent manufacturing technologies, pharmaceuticals, new energy, materials and finance, with 88 projects with a domestic investment of 75.1 billion yuan and 28 projects with overseas investment totaling $2.16 billion.

A total of 116 representatives from 12 countries and regions, and 15 provinces and municipalities joined the grand "cloud signing" ceremony that was supported by online video.

Regional clusters, including Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei province and the Pearl River Delta are major sources of investment.

Companies from the 12 countries and regions, including the US, the UK and the Netherlands, showed their confidence in businesses in Tianjin and are willing to boost its development.

"Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, the city has strengthened its efforts in controlling and preventing the spread of the virus and helping companies to resume production," Jin Xiangjun, vice-mayor of Tianjin, said.

Since early February, the city has put forward 21 policies and 27 measures to boost the economy and help companies break their bottleneck in fundraising, quenching their thirst in human resources, relieve their burden in business approval and cost reduction, as well as research and development."

The city has reduced taxation up to 16.3 billion yuan for local companies since the outbreak.