The fierce competition among local governments to attract investment has become the norm. With a limited number of leading enterprises and the fact that "champions" in specific sectors require a long time to cultivate and incubate, attracting foreign investment has become increasingly difficult, leading to constant battles between local governments over investment opportunities.

Navigating this thorny path of investment promotion, every step is like walking on thin ice.

Spending resources where they matter most—attracting the “ideal” companies with minimal effort and ensuring their long-term commitment.

This is the ideal scenario every investment promoter hopes to achieve.

Unfortunately, reality is often harsh, especially under the heavy pressure of the current economic environment.

The difficulty of attracting investment has become a widely accepted fact.

In this process, we often encounter two approaches: independent investment promotion and outsourced investment promotion.

Today, let’s discuss this “two-pronged” approach to investment promotion.

01 Steady and Methodical Independent Investment Promotion

Government-led investment promotion is like tending to your own vegetable garden: from selecting seeds and planting to watering, fertilizing, weeding, and pest control, you’re personally involved in every step and know the ins and outs.

In other words, from identifying investment priorities, planning projects, and conducting market research, to directly engaging with companies, organizing negotiations, and following through on implementation—every step is handled personally to ensure projects are deeply integrated with the local economic fabric.

When necessary, we must also become industrial investors to incubate and support promising ventures.

Take BOE’s partnership with the Hefei municipal government as an example: in 2007, Hefei staked one-third of its fiscal revenue on the display panel industry by investing in BOE. Ultimately, this yielded over 10 billion yuan in returns, establishing a leading local enterprise that attracted a cluster of upstream and downstream businesses to the area.

This approach—leveraging the capital markets to achieve a “raise-invest-exit” cycle with minimal capital—is known as the Hefei Model.

The benefits of local governments taking the lead in investment promotion go without saying: they firmly control resources and policies, flexibly adjust investment strategies, and ensure that every project takes root and bears fruit.

At the same time, the government’s direct “endorsement” allows enterprises to coordinate resources across multiple departments, swiftly streamline processes during critical approval stages, and maximize trust.

However, this does not mean that independent investment promotion is infallible. It also has certain limitations.

Confined to a specific region, it is difficult to maintain a holistic perspective; it is impossible to assess, from a national standpoint, whether local resources meet the requirements for the major development of a specific industry.

Furthermore, we may struggle to discern the true intentions of business owners. Especially when companies are considering relocation, many cite “trivial” reasons based on their own interests.

Without truly hearing the “voice of the enterprise,” it is impossible to genuinely improve the business environment from the enterprise’s perspective.

Finally, and most crucially, there is a shortage of personnel, teams, and resources. Investment promotion in first- and second-tier cities is manageable, as they have resources and dedicated teams. However, in third- and fourth-tier cities, as well as counties and townships, staffing for investment promotion teams is already stretched thin. Relying solely on independent investment promotion places higher demands on professionalism, market sensitivity, and industry research.

Given this, introducing outsourced investment promotion is a natural progression.

02 Leveraging External Expertise: Outsourced Investment Promotion

Outsourced investment promotion is like inviting a skilled chef to prepare a gourmet meal.

By delegating part of our investment promotion tasks to professional, market-oriented agencies, we leverage their extensive client networks and deep industry connections to quickly reach more potential investors and expand our outreach.

At the same time, these third-party agencies often possess a higher level of expertise, helping us overcome geographical limitations and attract higher-tier, larger-scale projects.

However, outsourcing investment promotion is not entirely risk-free; the key lies in finding truly reliable partners.

This raises a core question: What kind of third-party investment promotion agency can guarantee the successful implementation of a project?

Let’s get down to specifics: First, how do we determine if a third-party agency has the capability to ensure a project’s successful implementation?

Typically, market scale and client case studies serve as the best evidence.

Take GuChuan Alliance as an example: with 15 years of deep industry experience, it has established a presence in 19 cities across China, providing site selection and investment consulting services to over 1.13 million enterprises, and successfully facilitating the implementation of more than 8,100 projects—demonstrating top-tier professional expertise.

Foreign-funded enterprises, Fortune 500 companies, specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative firms, and projects with investments exceeding 1 billion yuan… Attracting high-end, cutting-edge enterprises with these “labels” is exactly what we consider the “prized targets.”

In terms of foreign investment, in recent years, Guchuan United has facilitated the establishment of production bases in China for companies such as Sika Degussa, Trate AG, Vitis, and Fosun Automotive.

Hengtong Group, a member of the China Top 500 and one of the world’s top three optical fiber communication companies, has partnered with Guchuan United three times for site selection.

With a total investment of 1 billion yuan, Akang Health, a leading internet healthcare company, settled in Chengdu’s Xindu District with the assistance of GuChuan United.

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Some say that investment promotion is like crossing a river by feeling one’s way along the stones. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could stand on the shoulders of others, leverage their experience in feeling out the stones, and cross our own river?

Secondly, we already know that third-party firms are highly capable, but how can we ensure that partnering with them will make us just as capable?

Ultimately, when our government engages third parties for investment promotion, it is about finding greater certainty and assurance amidst the uncertainties of the process.

03 Criteria for Assessing Guarantees of Certainty

So, what exactly constitutes a guarantee of certainty amid uncertainty? How can we give our government greater peace of mind?

This comes down to the preliminary stages and control mechanisms within the outsourced investment promotion process.

The preliminary stages are straightforward: they refer to the third-party investment promotion agency’s capabilities in industry research and providing customized services.

A reliable and professional third party will provide industrial positioning plans and research proposals tailored to local characteristics, and based on the research findings, offer targeted investment promotion strategies for our local government.

To put it simply, the enterprises attracted must align with the prospects of the local industrial plan, rather than accepting whatever comes along without long-term planning.

Take Guchuan Alliance as an example: in the early stages, we rely on the professional research team at the Guchuan Industrial Research Institute to conduct on-site inspections. By integrating the “Big Data + Internet + Investment Promotion” model, we can clearly map out the local industrial landscape. Drawing from a database of 1.13 million projects, we select the best options to produce personalized, targeted industrial planning and research proposals.

Through a comprehensive end-to-end control system and service framework, tasks can be broken down into process-oriented and outcome-oriented objectives within the agreed cooperation period. This ensures progress is monitored and professionalism is verified at every stage of the investment promotion process.

Taking GuChuan United as an example, we establish a relatively comprehensive and scientific set of process tasks, such as a mature project recommendation mechanism and mutually agreed-upon criteria for valid projects.

At the case study level, during GuChuan United’s investment promotion efforts for a certain industrial park in Northwest China, the GuChuan Industrial Research Institute initially developed an industrial research plan based on on-site inspections, an analysis of local resource advantages, and a comparison with competitors in the same region;

In the middle phase, based on the industrial research plan, both parties agreed on the proportion of projects in specific sectors to ensure the quality and quantity of recommended enterprises;

Throughout the process, regular review sessions and strategy adjustment meetings are held to ensure the government side can clearly track project progress and industrial composition.

04 Adopting a Dual-Track Approach to Ensure Effective Coordination

Independent investment promotion and commissioned investment promotion are not mutually exclusive; rather, they can complement and reinforce one another.

Just like a person’s two legs, only by exerting force simultaneously and coordinating efforts can one walk more steadily, farther, and with greater certainty.

In the process of local investment promotion, we must leverage third-party investment promotion agencies to broaden channels and overcome limitations and bottlenecks, including but not limited to industrial positioning planning, park marketing and branding, expansion of external publicity channels, and broadening the scope of enterprise outreach.

At the same time, we must also continuously accumulate experience and resources through independent investment promotion to enhance our own capabilities and standards, honing our ability to identify high-quality projects with precision.

In the process of coordinating and integrating independent investment promotion with outsourced efforts, our government must strive to fulfill several key roles:

● Formulators and implementers of local development policies;

● Decision-makers and regulators of development strategies;

● Formulators and evaluators of performance targets;

● The coordinator and evaluator of investment projects.

Finally, there is no fixed template or formula for investment promotion; only through continuous learning and innovation can we find the development path that best suits our needs.