Foreign investors have strong confidence in China's development, NDRC

BEIJING, July 20 (Xinhua) -- As China's epidemic control and production resumption have further advanced, the actual use of foreign investment in China has stabilized noticeably since the second quarter," said Yuan Da, spokesman for the National Development and Reform Commission, at a press conference on Friday.

In the first half of the year, China's actual use of foreign investment reached 67.93 billion U.S. dollars, down 4 percent year on year. Among which, the growth rate in the second quarter was 5.1 percent, up 17.9 percent from the first quarter.

Many projects have made positive progress, according to Yuan.

Recently, the contract for the third-phase project of CNOOC and Shell Petrochemicals Co., Ltd. in Huizhou, Guangdong, has been signed online; the first installment of BASF SE's new integrated base project entered the construction stage in Zhanjiang, Guangdong; Tesla's second-phase project in Shanghai is progressing in an orderly manner.

While pushing ahead the first three batches of major foreign-funded projects, the fourth batch has been launched, covering areas such as electronic information and new materials, showing the strong confidence of foreign enterprises in China's development, said Yuan.

Yuan said that the NDRC will continue to take the initiative to open the Chinese market wider to the world, constantly optimize the business environment and stabilize foreign investment.

The NDRC will ensure the implementation of the new negative lists for foreign investment accessing the country and pilot free trade zones, which will take effect on July 23.

In April, the NDRC, together with relevant departments, launched a charter flight mechanism for foreign personnel of major foreign-funded projects traveling to China, to solve international travel problems reported by multinational companies.

In the past three months, more than 5,000 foreign management and technical personnel of 23 projects have arrived in China through the charter flight mechanism.

The NDRC will promptly introduce the 2020 edition of the industrial catalogue for encouraging foreign investment to further expand the scope of foreign investment, and high-quality development of the manufacturing sector will be highlighted, said Yuan. (Edited by Yang Qi with Xinhua Silk Road, kateqiyang@xinhua.org)