Q2 In 2025, China's exports rose 6.1 percent, newly established foreign-invested enterprises increased by 19.1 percent, and research and development intensity reached 2.8 percent of GDP. Against the backdrop of global supply chain reconfiguration, is China's role in your global strategy expanding? How do you evaluate China's integrated advantages — manufacturing depth, innovation capacity, infrastructure and market scale — in supporting your production networks and supply resilience? Does China function primarily as a market, a production base, an innovation hub, or increasingly all three within your corporate architecture?

HOMMA: The Chinese market has unparalleled advantages in innovation speed, market size, the pace of intelligent transformation, the ability to absorb and apply new technologies, talent resources and supply chains. Amid intense competition, China has increasingly become a "training ground" for multinational companies to sharpen their competitiveness. Panasonic has achieved two consecutive years of business growth in components and industrial equipment that empower sectors such as AI, semiconductors and new energy. Signals from this year's two sessions reaffirm that China's economy is underpinned by solid fundamentals, multiple advantages, strong resilience and vast potential, while new quality productive forces are accelerating. Such a stable development environment continues to provide broad opportunities for foreign-invested enterprises.

XIA: China continues to play a pivotal role in global industrial and supply chains — not only as the world's largest chemicals producer, but as a strategic partner in high-end and green transformation. China is the cornerstone of Evonik's global growth, and we are proactively expanding our footprint with a particular focus on sustainability that aligns with China's ambitions toward high-end manufacturing and an enhanced digital economy. For Evonik, this integrated advantage enables China to function simultaneously as a core market for high-value specialty chemicals, a production base embedded in global supply networks and an innovation hub, especially in fields such as biotechnology, new energy, batteries and the circular economy.

ZHOU: China has always been one of our strategically important markets. On manufacturing, we continue expanding investment. In January, dsm-firmenich (Hohhot) Biotechnology Co Ltd commenced operations, providing timely support to local dairy enterprises. Last year, we completed the acquisition of a 90.5 percent strategic stake in Yantai Andre Pectin, enhancing supply chain resilience. Emerging sectors, nutritional products, the silver economy and the fragrance economy align strongly with our core business. Our 2025 Shanghai Fine Fragrance Atelier 2.0 upgrade responds precisely to consumers' shift from functional needs to emotional healing and cultural identity.

HUANG: In a period marked by global supply chain reconfiguration, companies are increasingly looking for locations that combine scale, reliability, innovation capability and market depth. The China market combines strong scale advantages with significant growth potential. It features a globally rare, fully integrated manufacturing value chain and a highly efficient logistics system, and is increasingly becoming a comprehensive hub that brings together manufacturing, application-driven innovation and market demand. The "new quality productive forces" have merged into the engine of China's high-quality and sustainable development. The China market offers Dow broad opportunities to translate the science of cutting-edge materials into solutions that are practical, scalable and sustainable.