HONG KONG: Large delegations of Chinese city and business officials have made hundreds of trips to Asia and Europe since December, seeking to drum up foreign investment as local governments scramble to hit growth and employment targets.

District officials have joined their supervisors at city and provincial levels, along with local businesses, in crossing the border more frequently than ever, according to their social media accounts and three sources who met some of them.

After three years behind closed borders as China enforced strict “zero-COVID” measures at great cost to its economy, officials made business trips to locations ranging from Hong Kong to Paris within days of the curbs being lifted.

Their urgency highlights the pressure local governments face in boosting growth while burdened with cumulative debt of $9 trillion, said the sources who met Chinese officials in Hong Kong.

“There’s obvious pressure on every level of government to achieve high targets,” said Erik Yim, a legislator representing Chinese enterprises in the Asian financial hub.

Yim added that geopolitical and trade tension with the United States prompted the delegations to focus more on the rest of the world.

The world’s No. 2 economy is “open for business”, Premier Li Qiang said last week at China’s Boao Forum, a summit sometimes touted as Asia’s answer to Davos, where he vowed to win over foreign investors and support private enterprises.

While China chose a lower growth target of about 5% for 2023 than the goal of roughly 5.5% it missed last year because of lockdowns against COVID-19, it wants to create a million more jobs than it aimed for in 2022.

Two prominent executives in Hong Kong, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the officials they met as being more determined than ever to secure investments for projects ranging from ports and biotech to art and sport.