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Hedge fund manager Mark Yusko is predicting bitcoin will more than double this year to $150,000.
“Get off zero,” the Morgan Creek Capital Management CEO and chief investment officer told CNBC’s “Fast Money” this week.

Yusko thinks investors should have at least 1% to 3% allocated to bitcoin in their portfolios. “Bitcoin is the king. It is the dominant token. It is a better form of gold,” he said.
As of Thursday’s stock market close, bitcoin is up about 159% over the past year. It had surpassed the $73,000 level earlier in March, but was trading around $70,700 Thursday evening.
“The law of large numbers comes in. I think it can go up 10x from here easily over the next decade,” added Yusko.
He lists bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which were launched in January, as a major bullish driver for the cryptocurrency. Yusko expects the bitcoin halving to lead to a supply shock resulting in another round of major tailwinds for the flagship crypto.
The halving, which cuts the bitcoin mining reward in half to limit supply, is expected in late April.

“The big move happens post-halving,” said Yusko. “It starts to become more … parabolic toward the end of the year. And, historically about nine months after the halving, so sometime toward Thanksgiving, Christmas, we see the peak in price before the next bear market.”
Yusko’s firm also has exposure to crypto online trading platform Coinbase. “We think big things are in line for Coinbase,” he said.
Shares of Coinbase are up almost 321% over the past 12 months.
Disclosure: Yusko’s firms own bitcoin, ethereum, gold, Coinbase and Nvidia.

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Chinese telecommunications company Huawei said Friday its net profit for 2023 more than doubled thanks to better product offerings.
The telecommunications company made a comeback in the smartphone market in 2023 with the quiet release of its Mate 60 Pro in China in late August.

Huawei brought one of the largest displays to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2024.
Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

BEIJING — Chinese telecommunications company Huawei said Friday its net profit for 2023 more than doubled thanks to better product offerings.
The company also attributed the profit gains to revenue growth of 9.6% year-on-year to 704.2 billion yuan ($99.18 billion). Net profit grew by 144.5% year-on-year to 87 billion yuan.

Higher quality operations and sales of some businesses contributed to profitability as well, according to Huawei.
The telecommunications company made a comeback in the smartphone market in 2023 with the quiet release of its Mate 60 Pro in China in late August. Reviews indicated the device offers download speeds associated with 5G — thanks to an advanced semiconductor chip. That’s despite U.S. restrictions since 2019 on Huawei’s ability to access high-end tech from American suppliers.
The Mate 60 Pro helped boost Huawei’s sales in China. In the fourth quarter, Huawei smartphone shipments in the country surged by 47% from a year ago, putting the company in fourth place by market share, ahead of Xiaomi, according to Canalys. Apple maintained first place with 6% year-on-year growth in shipments, the data showed.
Huawei’s revenue grew by 0.9% to 642.3 billion yuan in 2022, as the company stabilized its business in a tough year following a plunge of more than 28% in sales in 2021. Net profit in 2022 fell by 69%, the largest drop on record. The company at the time cited rising commodity prices, China’s pandemic controls and growing research and development spend.
Huawei on Friday also said its intelligent automobile solutions business saw revenue grow by 128.1% from a year ago to 4.7 billion yuan.

The company sells software and other technology to car companies. It has also partnered with an automaker for the Aito electric car brand.
Huawei said its consumer business saw revenue grow by 17.3% year-on-year to 251.5 billion yuan in 2023.
ICT remained by far Huawei’s biggest revenue driver with 362 billion yuan in revenue in 2023, up 2.3% from a year ago.
Cloud revenue grew by nearly 22% to 55.3 billion yuan.
— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report. More

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said the standard version of the SU7 will sell for 215,900 yuan ($30,408) in the country — a price he acknowledged would mean the company was selling each car at a loss.
Tesla’s Model 3 starts at 245,900 yuan in China.
Lei claimed the standard version of the SU7 beat the Model 3 on more than 90% of its specifications, except on two aspects that he said it might take Xiaomi at least three to five years to catch up with Tesla on.

Chinese consumer electronics company Xiaomi revealed Thurs., Dec. 28, 2023, its long-awaited electric car, but declined to share its price or specific release date.
CNBC | Evelyn Cheng

BEIJING — Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi said Thursday it will sell its first car for far less than Tesla’s Model 3, as price wars heat up in China’s fiercely competitive electric car market.
Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said the standard version of the SU7 will sell for 215,900 yuan ($30,408) in the country — a price he acknowledged would mean the company was selling each car at a loss.

Tesla’s Model 3 starts at 245,900 yuan in China.
Lei claimed the standard version of the SU7 beat the Model 3 on more than 90% of its specifications, except on two aspects that he said it might take Xiaomi at least three to five years to catch up with Tesla on. He also said the SU7 had a minimum driving range of 700 kilometers (nearly 435 miles) versus the Model 3’s 606 kilometers. The company said orders had exceeded 50,000 cars in the 27 minutes since sales started at 10 p.m. Beijing time Thursday.
Deliveries are set to start by the end of April, Lei said. Lei also claimed that Xiaomi’s car factory, for which all “key” steps are fully automated, can produce an SU7 every 76 seconds. It was not immediately clear whether the factory was fully operational.
Earlier this week, the Xiaomi CEO said on social media the SU7 would be the best sedan “under 500,000 yuan” ($69,328).
The car is entering a fiercely competitive market in China, where companies are launching a slew of new models and cutting prices in order to survive. Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has partnered with traditional automakers, most notably launching the Aito brand whose vehicles are often on display in Huawei smartphone showrooms.

Tesla’s Model 3 is the best-selling new energy sedan in China that has a driving range of at least 600 kilometers (372 miles) and costs less than 500,000 yuan, according to data from industry website Autohome.

BYD’s Han sedan starts at 169,800 yuan, according to Autohome.
Nio’s ET5 starts at 298,000 yuan, while Xpeng’s P7 starts at 209,900 yuan, the data showed. Geely-owned Zeekr’s 007 sedan starts at 209,900 yuan, according to Autohome.
Sales of new energy vehicles, which include battery-only powered cars, have surged in China to account for about one-third of new passenger cars sold, according to the China Passenger Car Association.

Accessories

The heads of competing electric car startups Nio, Xpeng and Li Auto were among the featured guests at the Xiaomi SU7 launch event.
Lei on Thursday showed off a range of accessories such as an in-car refrigerator, a custom front-window shade, and a smartphone holder, some available for free with a car purchase before the end of April, and others for a separate price.
The SU7 supports Apple’s Car Play and can integrate with the iPad, Lei said. He also revealed driver-assist tech for highways and cities, set to be fully available in China in August.
Tesla’s Autopilot for driver assist on highways is available in China, but the company’s “Full Self Driving” for city streets has yet to be released in the country.
Despite saying Xiaomi wanted to compete with Porsche at a car tech event in December, Lei acknowledged that the SU7 had longer to go before it might be able to compete at this more premium level. He announced that the “Max” version of the SU7, aimed as a competitor with Porsche’s Taycan, would sell for 299,900 yuan.

Ecosystem of devices

The SU7 is part of Xiaomi’s recently launched “Human x Car x Home” strategy that seeks to build an ecosystem of devices connected to its new HyperOS operating system. Most of the company’s revenue is from phones, with just under 30% coming from appliances and other consumer products.
Although Xiaomi is generally known for more affordable products, its President Lu Weibing told CNBC earlier this year the company has been pursuing a premiumization strategy since 2020 — and that there are about 20 million users in that price segment who might buy the SU7.
Lu told CNBC that the SU7 will first be sold to consumers in China, and that it would take at least two to three years for any overseas launch.
The company showed off the car at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in late February, following a reveal of the vehicle’s exterior and tech in Beijing in late December. More

The bank announced in late March that Ermotti would return for a second spell at the helm, replacing Ralph Hamers as UBS undertook the mammoth task of integrating Credit Suisse’s business.
In total, the bank’s executive board picked up a 140.3 million Swiss franc compensation package in 2023, a significant increase from the previous year’s 106.9 million francs.

Newly appointed UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti (R) speaks with UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher during a press conference in Zurich on March 29, 2023.
Arnd Wiegmann | Afp | Getty Images

UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti earned 14.4 million Swiss francs ($15.9 million) in 2023 after his surprise return at the helm of the Swiss banking giant, following its takeover of stricken rival Credit Suisse.
The bank announced in late March that Ermotti would return for a second spell as CEO, replacing Ralph Hamers from April 5 last year, as UBS undertook the mammoth task of integrating Credit Suisse’s business. Ermotti’s previous tenure ran from 2011 to 2020.

Hamers earned 12.6 million Swiss francs in 2022 during his last full year as CEO, according to UBS’ annual report published on Thursday.
The figures total base and variable compensation.
In total, the bank’s executive board picked up a 140.3 million Swiss franc pay package in 2023, a significant increase from the previous year’s 106.9 million francs.
Bonuses paid to employees at the new combined bank totaled $4.5 billion, UBS revealed, the majority of which was paid in cash.
This marked a 14% reduction compared with the aggregate 2022 pool of $5.3 billion for the combined entities, as UBS looks to cut costs as part of its integration of Credit Suisse.

The bank last month reported a second consecutive quarterly loss on the back of integration costs, but continued to deliver strong underlying operating profits.
UBS shares have gained more than 52% since Ermotti took the reins on April 5, 2023. More

China’s economy is ending the first quarter on a “strong” note, according to a business survey published by the China Beige Book on Thursday.
“Hiring recorded its longest stretch of improvement since late 2020,” the report said, noting every sector except for services saw job growth pick up.
China’s official data on retail sales, industrial production and fixed asset investment for January and February beat expectations across the board.

Employees work on a battery production line at Jiangsu Yongda Power Supply Co. on March 26, 2024 in Suqian, Jiangsu province of China.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

BEIJING — China’s economy is ending the first quarter on a “strong” note, according to a business survey published by the China Beige Book on Thursday.
“The economy clearly improved in March, thanks to better industrial activity and stronger retail spending,” said Shehzad H. Qazi, chief operating officer at the China Beige Book, a U.S.-based research firm.

China’s official data on retail sales, industrial production and fixed asset investment for January and February beat expectations across the board. Figures for the first two months of the year are typically reported together to account for the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, which follows the agrarian calendar.
The China Beige Book said it surveyed 1,436 businesses between March 1 and 23, split roughly between state-owned and non-state-owned firms.
“China Beige Book’s March data show the economy poised for a strong end to Q1,” the report said. “Revenue growth accelerated atop last month while pricing gains boosted margins.”

The National Bureau of Statistics is scheduled to release first quarter data on April 16.
China earlier this month announced the country would target growth of around 5% for the year. Some analysts said it was an ambitious target given the current level of announced government stimulus.

The China Beige Book found that businesses have pulled back their borrowing due to higher interest rates, but also observed signs of a pause on the lending side.
“Market observers have largely missed the substantial policy easing we’ve tracked over the past year, and now some lenders may be hitting the brakes,” the report said.

Employment improves

“Hiring recorded its longest stretch of improvement since late 2020,” the report said, noting every sector except for services saw job growth pick up.
Retail spending increased in all sub-sectors, except for luxury goods, the report said.
In real estate, the report said that while the residential sector still showed a decline in sales, commercial sales and construction improved significantly.
Manufacturing saw growth in production and domestic orders from February, but export orders fell, the report said.
Official data showed investment into real estate fell 9% in the first two months of the year from a year ago. Investment in infrastructure rose by 6.3% during that time, while manufacturing saw a 9.4% increase. More

Amazon is spending billions more to back an artificial intelligence startup as it looks for an edge in the new technology arms race.  
The tech and cloud giant said Wednesday it would spend another $2.75 billion backing Anthropic, adding to its initial $1.25 billion check.
It’s the latest in a spending blitz by cloud providers to stay ahead in what’s viewed as a new technology revolution.  

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Amazon is making its largest outside investment in its three-decade history as it looks to gain an edge in the artificial intelligence race. 
The tech giant said it will spend another $2.75 billion backing Anthropic, a San Francisco-based startup that’s widely viewed as a front-runner in generative artificial intelligence. Its foundation model and chatbot Claude competes with OpenAI and ChatGPT.

The companies announced an initial $1.25 billion investment in September, and said at the time that Amazon would invest up to $4 billion. Wednesday’s news marks Amazon’s second tranche of that funding.
Amazon will maintain a minority stake in the company and won’t have an Anthropic board seat, the company said. The deal was struck at the AI startup’s last valuation, which was $18.4 billion, according to a source. 
Over the past year, Anthropic closed five different funding deals worth about $7.3 billion. The company’s product directly competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT in both the enterprise and consumer worlds, and it was founded by ex-OpenAI research executives and employees.
News of the Amazon investment comes weeks after Anthropic debuted Claude 3, its newest suite of AI models that it says are its fastest and most powerful yet. The company said the most capable of its new models outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini Ultra on industry benchmark tests, such as undergraduate level knowledge, graduate level reasoning and basic mathematics.
“Generative AI is poised to be the most transformational technology of our time, and we believe our strategic collaboration with Anthropic will further improve our customers’ experiences, and look forward to what’s next,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of data and AI at AWS cloud provider.

Amazon’s move is the latest in a spending blitz among cloud providers to stay ahead in the AI race. And it’s the second update in a week to Anthropic’s capital structure. Late Friday, bankruptcy filings showed crypto exchange FTX struck a deal with a group of buyers to sell the majority of its stake in Anthropic, confirming a CNBC report from last week.

Read more CNBC reporting on AI

What is generative AI?

The term generative AI entered the mainstream and business vernacular seemingly overnight, and the field has exploded over the past year, with a record $29.1 billion invested across nearly 700 deals in 2023, according to PitchBook. OpenAI’s ChatGPT first showcased the tech’s ability to produce human-like language and creative content in late 2022. Since then, OpenAI has said more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies have adopted the platform, spanning industries such as financial services, legal applications and education.
Cloud providers like Amazon Web Services don’t want to be caught flat-footed.
It’s a symbiotic relationship. As part of the agreement, Anthropic said it will use AWS as its primary cloud provider. It will also use Amazon chips to train, build and deploy its foundation models. Amazon has been designing its own chips that may eventually compete with Nvidia. 
Microsoft has been on its own spending spree with a high-profile investment in OpenAI. Microsoft’s OpenAI bet has reportedly jumped to $13 billion as the startup’s valuation has topped $29 billion. Microsoft’s Azure is also OpenAI’s exclusive provider for computing power, which means the startup’s success and new business flows back to Microsoft’s cloud servers.
Google, meanwhile, has also backed Anthropic, with its own deal for Google Cloud. It agreed to invest up to $2 billion in Anthropic, comprising a $500 million cash infusion, with another $1.5 billion to be invested over time. Salesforce is also a backer.
Anthropic’s new model suite, announced earlier this month, marks the first time the company has offered “multimodality,” or adding options like photo and video capabilities to generative AI.
But multimodality, and increasingly complex AI models, also lead to more potential risks. Google recently took its AI image generator, part of its Gemini chatbot, offline after users discovered historical inaccuracies and questionable responses, which circulated widely on social media.
Anthropic’s Claude 3 does not generate images. Instead, it only allows users to upload images and other documents for analysis.
“Of course no model is perfect, and I think that’s a very important thing to say upfront,” Anthropic co-founder Daniela Amodei told CNBC earlier this month. “We’ve tried very diligently to make these models the intersection of as capable and as safe as possible. Of course there are going to be places where the model still makes something up from time to time.”
Amazon’s biggest venture bet before Anthropic was electric vehicle maker Rivian, where it invested more than $1.3 billion. That too, was a strategic partnership. 
These partnerships have been picking up in the face of more antitrust scrutiny. A drop in acquisitions by the Magnificent Seven — Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla — has been offset by an increase in venture-style investing, according to Pitchbook.

Big Tech’s investments

AI and machine-learning investments from those seven tech companies jumped to $24.6 billion last year, up from $4.4 billion in 2022, according to Pitchbook. At the same time, Big Tech’s M&A deals fell from 40 deals in 2022 to 13 last year. 
“There is a sort of paranoia motivation to invest in potential disruptors,” Pitchbook AI analyst Brendan Burke said in an interview. “The other motivation is to increase sales, and to invest in companies that are likely to use the other company’s product — they tend to be partners, more so than competitors.”
Big Tech’s spending spree in AI has come under fire for the seemingly circular nature of these agreements. By investing in AI startups, some observers, including Benchmark’s Bill Gurley, have accused the tech giants of funneling cash back to their cloud businesses, which in turn, may show up as revenue. Gurley described it as a way to “goose your own revenues.”
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is taking a closer look at these partnerships, including Microsoft’s OpenAI deal and Google and Amazon’s Anthropic investments. What’s sometimes called “round tripping” can be illegal — especially if the aim is to mislead investors. But Amazon has said that this type of venture investing does not constitute round tripping.
FTC Chair Lina Khan announced the inquiry during the agency’s tech summit on AI, describing it as a “market inquiry into the investments and partnerships being formed between AI developers and major cloud service providers.”
Correction: This article has been updated to clarify the deals Anthropic has closed in the past year.

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Allocating just 2% to 3% of a portfolio to cryptocurrency like bitcoin is “more than enough,” according to one certified financial planner.
Crypto is an incredibly volatile asset, experts said.
Whether and how much a person invests will depend on their capacity and tolerance for risk.

Tara Moore | Stone | Getty Images

Katherine Dowling has an analogy that may be useful for investors thinking of buying cryptocurrency like bitcoin and wondering what amount is appropriate.
It’s “like cayenne pepper,” said Dowling, general counsel and chief compliance officer at Bitwise Asset Management, a crypto money manager. “A little goes a long way” in a portfolio, she explained earlier this month at Financial Advisor Magazine’s annual Invest in Women conference in West Palm Beach, Florida.

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Ivory Johnson, a certified financial planner and member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council, said the description is apt.
“The more volatile an asset class is, the less of it that you need,” said Johnson, who founded Delancey Wealth Management, based in Washington, D.C.

A 2% or 3% allocation is ‘more than enough’

Cryptocurrencies are digital assets, a category that should be considered an “alternative investment,” Johnson said.
Other types of alts may include private equity, hedge funds and venture capital, for example. Financial advisors generally consider them separate from traditional portfolio holdings like stocks, bonds and cash.

Allocating 2% or 3% of one’s investment portfolio to crypto is “more than enough,” Johnson said.
Let’s say an asset grows by 50% this year, and an investor holds a 1% position. That’s like having a 5% position in another asset that grew 10%, Johnson said.

Whether investors buy in to crypto — and how much they hold — will depend on their tolerance and capacity for risk, Johnson said.
For example, long-term investors in their mid-20s can afford to take more risk because they have ample time to make up for losses. Such a person may be able to stomach substantial financial losses and may reasonably hold 5% to 7% of their portfolio in crypto, Johnson added.
However, that allocation would most likely not be appropriate for a 70-year-old investor who can’t afford to subject their nest egg to major losses, he said.
“Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a very speculative investment and involves a high degree of risk,” investment strategists at Wells Fargo Advisors wrote in a note last year. “Investors must have the financial ability, sophistication/experience and willingness to bear the risks of an investment, and a potential total loss of their investment.”

Crypto is ‘an incredibly volatile asset’

Crypto prices have been on a wild ride lately.
Bitcoin, for example, surged to an all-time high earlier in March. It topped $73,000 at its peak, though it has since retreated to less than $69,000.
Bitcoin prices had collapsed heading into 2022, and shed about 64% that year to below $20,000. By comparison, the S&P 500 stock index lost 19.4%.
Prices have since quadrupled from their low point in November 2022, as of late Wednesday. They’ve soared more than 50% year to date, while the S&P 500 is up about 9%.

Bitcoin is about eight times as volatile as the S&P 500, Johnson wrote in a Journal of Financial Planning article in December 2022, citing data from the Digital Asset Council for Financial Professionals.
The Crypto Volatility Index was about six times higher than the CBOE Volatility Index as of Wednesday.
“It’s still an incredibly volatile asset,” Bitwise’s Dowling said. “It’s not for everybody.”
Investing in crypto became easier for many investors after the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a slew of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in January, in a first for the asset class.
Investors may wish to consider dollar-cost averaging into crypto, Johnson said. This entails buying a little bit at a time, until reaching one’s target allocation. Investors should also rebalance periodically to ensure big crypto profits or losses don’t tweak one’s target allocation over time, he said.

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U.S. business leaders met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, the latest of Beijing’s efforts to bolster foreign investment in China amid tensions with the U.S.
The executives and others from major international companies were in Beijing this week for the annual China Development Forum, which ran from Sunday to Monday.
A combination of geopolitical tensions, regulatory uncertainty and slower economic growth have made it more challenging for foreign businesses in China.

China’s President Xi Jinping speaks at the “Senior Chinese Leader Event” held by the National Committee on US-China Relations and the US-China Business Council on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, California, U.S., November 15, 2023. 
Carlos Barria | Reuters

BEIJING — U.S. business leaders met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, the latest of Beijing’s efforts to bolster foreign investment in China amid tensions with the U.S.
Blackstone founder Stephen Schwarzman, Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon, Bloomberg Chair Mark Carney and FedEx President Rajesh Subramaniam were among the attendees, according to state media.

The companies did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Earlier reports described the meetings as a follow-up to Xi’s dinner with U.S. business executives in San Francisco in November following the Chinese president’s meeting with President Joe Biden.
The executives and others from major international companies were in Beijing this week for the annual China Development Forum (CDF), which took place Sunday to Monday.
Top executives of multinational companies typically attend the state-organized forum, which is billed as the “first major state-level international conference” after China’s annual parliamentary meetings in early March.
The forum this year coincided with other efforts to attract foreign business. Chinese authorities hosted an “Invest in China Summit” and formally eased once-stringent data export requirements.

The Cyberspace Administration of China late Friday formally released long-awaited new rules that eliminate government oversight of overseas information sharing if regulators haven’t categorized it as “important data.” Those rules were effective immediately.

What we have is businesses getting stuck in the middle, because the U.S. has been more involved in business than I can remember.

Carlos Gutierrez
former U.S. Secretary of Commerce

“This is a significant step forward in terms of transparency and our member companies now have much more clarity as they look to comply with these rules,” Sean Stein, chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said in a statement.
“Notably, these changes strengthen the role of industry-specific regulators to determine what data should be deemed important in their sectors,” he said, “and also presumes that data is not important unless specifically declared as such.”
However, a combination of geopolitical tensions, regulatory uncertainty and slower economic growth have made it more challenging for foreign businesses in China.
“What we have is businesses getting stuck in the middle, because the U.S. has been more involved in business than I can remember,” Carlos Gutierrez, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

“We are in that period of time of confusion of different ideologies,” Gutierrez said. “We will get through it. Nothing is permanent and eventually the numbers will show that globalization is a better model than self-sufficiency or nationalism. But regrettably we are in that moment in time and will be in that for a while.”
Biden, who is running for reelection in November, has released incentives for boosting industrial development in the U.S. His administration has also used export controls to restrict U.S. companies from selling advanced semiconductor technology to China.

… foreign companies share the same lack of confidence and worries about an uncertain future that is felt amongst much of China’s domestic industry.

Scott Kennedy
Center for Strategic and International Studies

To help foreign businesses better navigate the China market, former SwissCham China executive director Peter Bachmann proposed the creation of a dedicated executive based at a company’s global headquarters.
“We have to deal now with two different levels. One is the business level, and one is the political one. Before it was just the business level,” said Bachmann, a long-time Shanghai resident and board member of the China Centre at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW).
He said that makes the case for a so-called “Chief China Officer,” whose job includes helping the main office understand China better, and bridge the gap between the headquarters and the leadership team in China.

Looking for economic clarity

For businesses considering China investment plans, the country’s near-term growth outlook is another factor.
“The U.S. business delegation [at CDF] was substantially larger than last year, the conference organizers gave them a more visible platform, and they took advantage of that opportunity to speak up,” said Scott Kennedy, senior advisor and trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
“The Chinese party-state tried to send a clear signal that foreign businesses are welcome, but foreign companies share the same lack of confidence and worries about an uncertain future that is felt amongst much of China’s domestic industry,” Kennedy said.
The Chinese government announced at its parliamentary meeting this month the country would target growth of around 5%.

Several analysts have said such a goal is ambitious given the current levels of announced stimulus and the drag from the massive real estate sector. Top government officials signaled during the parliamentary meeting that Beijing could increase its support, but they did not elaborate.
The China Development Form this year “offered no new insights into the challenges China faces and any new policy remedies being considered,” said Stephen S. Roach, senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.
Instead, the forum focused more on what had already been shared at the parliamentary meeting earlier in the month, said Roach, who said he’s attended CDF every year except for the first one in 2000.
“To me it seemed more like a placeholder for the upcoming Party Third Plenum that could provide a stronger hint of any new reforms or policy strategy,” Roach said.
China’s ruling Communist Party typically holds a “Third Plenum” every five years to discuss longer-term aspects of the economy. The meeting has been widely anticipated since it was expected to take place late last year.

Non-U.S. foreign investment

Foreign direct investment in China in 2023 fell to a three-year low, according to official data. Since the easing of pandemic-era border controls early last year, China has doubled down on efforts to attract foreign capital.
The Ministry of Commerce and Beijing city held the first “Invest in China Summit” on Tuesday, and claimed about 140 business representatives attended.
“Investing in China is to invest in the future,” China’s Vice President Han Zheng declared in an opening speech, according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks. He emphasized China’s large market, industrial supply chain, and pointed out how China has worked on issues such as data exports and equal market treatment for foreign businesses.
While the U.S. and European businesses face greater geopolitical considerations when it comes to China operations, Middle Eastern capital has been eyeing the market.
“When it comes to opportunities for Aramco and China to join hands, the bottom line is that the sky is the limit!” Amin H. Nasser, president and CEO of the Saudi energy giant, said in a speech Tuesday at the Invest in China Summit.

He noted how Aramco and its chemicals subsidiary SABIC have made deals in the last year for more than $20 billion in chemicals investments in China. Nasser also said that venture capital is a “strategic area for collaboration,” and pointed out how Aramco in January more than doubled its funding for its VC arm to $7.5 billion.
Japanese companies are also looking for investment opportunities this year in China’s robotics, factory automation and car industry, Toyoki Oka, secretary general of the Japan-China Investment Promotion Agency, said on the sidelines of the summit. He said such investments would be for sales to China, and eventually exports to Southeast Asia.
— CNBC’s Eunice Yoon contributed to this report. More