Aug 29 (Reuters) - 
    United States Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has said U.S. companies have
raised concerns that China has become "
    uninvestible
    ", pointing to fines, raids and other actions that have made it too risky to do
business in the world's second-largest economy.
  
        Major global firms ranging from banks to chipmakers are taking a largely
cautious stance on their China business amid a frail recovery of the country's
economy from a pandemic slowdown.
    
    Following are comments from some of the top firms on their China business
during the latest reporting season:
 Estee Lauder        The luxury firm forecast a weak annual profit, owing to a
                     slower-than-expected rebound in Asia travel retail business.
 Haleon              The Sensodyne maker said sales from Fenbid pain reliever gel
                     doubled in China in the first half.
 Tapestry            Coach handbags maker said it expects to benefit from a
                     recovery in demand from the "highly profitable region" of
                     China this fiscal year.
 Starbucks           The coffeehouse chain saw a sharp recovery in China, with
                     third-quarter comparable sales surging 46%.
 Marriott            The U.S. hotel operator said rebounding demand in China
 International       boosted its earnings. 
                     
 Merck & Co          The drugmaker said use of Gardasil in China was the biggest
                     growth driver for the human papillomavirus vaccine.
 Procter & Gamble    The Tide detergent maker reported a 1% drop in its
                     fourth-quarter volumes, mainly due to weaker demand in the
                     Greater China region.  
 Intel               "The China market, I think, has been well reported, hasn't
                     come back as strongly as people would have expected overall,"
                     chipmaker Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said.
 AbbVie Inc          The Botox maker said it has seen rates for aesthetics
                     treatments in China fully recover to pre-COVID levels and
                     continues to anticipate strong growth through the rest of the
                     year in the country.
 Mastercard          Inbound cross-border travel to China stood at nearly 50% of
                     2019 levels, while outbound travel was nearly 70%, the company
                     said.
 Coca-Cola           The company saw strong demand for some juice business in China
                     but also flagged destocking activity in the second quarter.
 Thermo Fisher       The company witnessed significantly slower economic activity
 Scientific          in China during the second quarter. "We think it's appropriate
                     to assume that this condition remains in place for the
                     remainder of the year," said CFO Stephen Williamson. 
 Visa                "Looking at Mainland China specifically, cross-border travel
                     continued to improve but remains well below 2019 levels," CFO
                     Vasant Prabhu said.
 3M Co               The industrial conglomerate flagged continued weak appetite
                     for consumer electronics demand in China.
 Dow Inc             The chemical maker said the anticipated rebound following the
                     end of pandemic curbs has yet to fully materialize.
 NXP Semiconductors  The chipmaker said China's export curbs on certain gallium and
                     germanium products did not impact the company.
 Citigroup           The lender called it the "biggest disappointment" as growth
                     decelerated after an initial post-reopening pop.  
 Royal Bank of       Canada's largest bank forecast slowing growth, partly due to a
 Canada              slowdown in China and elevated climate and geopolitical risks.
 BHP Group           The world's biggest miner saw strong steel demand from some
                     sectors in China, but said it was too early to assess the
                     impact of Beijing's policy measures on the housing market.
 Toyota              The automaker said foreign exchange rate fluctuations and its
                     response to price cuts in China hurt its results there.
 Panasonic           The battery supplier said it saw no sign of a full-fledged
                     recovery in the factory automation sector in China, and that
                     it would take more time for areas such as servers, data
                     centres and ICT to recover overall.
 Volkswagen          The German carmaker cut its full-year sales target after sales
                     dipped in China, its top market.
 Anglo American      The global miner said it has been surprised by how slow the
                     reopening of China has been but believed a recovery was
                     underway.
 L'Oreal             The Chinese market is "really picking up," although "not at
                     the speed everybody had hoped for," L'Oreal CEO Nicolas
                     Hieronimus told Reuters. 
 Rio Tinto           The world's biggest iron ore producer struck a cautiously
                     optimistic tone on China as the government has pledged more
                     policies to boost growth.
 Nissan              CEO Makoto Uchida said China sales outlook for the automaker
                     was now falling far below production capacity.
 LG Energy Solution  The company warned it faces weaker EV demand in China than
                     previously expected.  
 LVMH                The French luxury giant logged a strong rebound in China
                     during the second quarter.
 ABB                 The engineering firm witnessed fewer new orders from China in
                     the quarter and said some customers were shifting investments
                     to other parts of Asia due to geopolitical tensions.
    

 (Compiled by Savyata Mishra, Arunima Kumar, Niket Nishant, Granth Vanaik, Aditya
Soni and Bhanvi Satija; Edited by Shinjini Ganguli and Shounak Dasgupta)