Representatives from multinational corporations attend a roundtable in Ningbo. [Photo/cnnb.com.cn]

At a roundtable for executives of multinational corporations in the new materials industry held in Ningbo on May 18, nearly 50 companies expressed a strong desire to strengthen cooperation with the city in East China's Zhejiang province.

During the roundtable, Kyle Redinger, vice-president of the Asia-Pacific region at Invista, a US producer of chemical intermediates, said he was deeply impressed by the development of Ningbo's green petrochemical industry and believes that Invista and Ningbo have immense potential for cooperation. He noted that Invista has already collaborated with five Chinese companies in the past 18 months.

The green petrochemical industry in Ningbo achieved an output value of 522.13 billion yuan ($74.28 billion) last year, a year-on-year growth of 28.6 percent and accounting for 21.45 percent of Ningbo's total industrial output value.

Zeng Qicheng, head of government affairs at Linde, a German industrial gases and engineering company, echoed the views of Redinger, saying she hopes Linde and Ningbo can further strengthen cooperation to expand the application of hydrogen energy in the automobile and industrial sectors.

Linde has to date invested over 4 billion yuan in Ningbo, about one-tenth of its total investment in China. It has constructed nearly 150 kilometers of pipelines in the city, and its air separation plant in Ningbo is the largest of its kind in China.

Corning, a US materials company, is also determined to invest in China, said Tu Wei. All five business divisions of Corning have already made investments in China, and the company started cooperating with Ningbo in 2020.

Seven Fortune 500 companies, including BASF, Siemens, and Schneider Electric, as well as enterprises engaged in various sectors in the chemical, equipment manufacturing, inspection and testing, and consumer goods manufacturing industries were also present at the meeting.