Photo taken on Nov. 4, 2021 shows the morning scenery in east China's Shanghai. (Photo by He Zhongming/Xinhua)
BEIJING, March 20 (Xinhua) -- The General Office of the State Council has issued an action plan introducing 24 measures to promote high-level opening-up and make greater efforts in attracting and utilizing foreign investment.
The 24 measures are across five aspects, including expanding market access, enhancing appeal to foreign investment, fostering a level playing field, facilitating the flow of innovation factors, as well as better aligning domestic rules with high-standard international economic and trade rules.
-- Expanding access for foreign financial institutions to the banking and insurance sectors
The action plan proposes to expand access of foreign financial institutions to the banking and insurance sectors, support qualified foreign institutions to carry out bank card clearing business in accordance with the law, and further opening-up in commercial pension insurance, health insurance among others.
It also proposes to facilitate the participation of foreign financial institutions in the Chinese bond market by broadening the business scope of participation, optimizing related procedures and supporting bond underwriting domestically by eligible foreign financial institutions in accordance with regulations, and deeply implement the pilot program of the Qualified Foreign Limited Partner (QFLP).
The opening-up in the financial sector is a focus of China's financial reform, and the action plan further deepens China's financial openness and brings more opportunities for foreign institutions to involve in multiple fields and emerging businesses, said Zeng Gang, director with the Shanghai Institution for Finance & Development.
That the action plan proposes to give support for qualified foreign institutions to carry out bank card clearing business indicates the openness in China's bank card clearing market will be constantly promoted and deepened, noted Dong Ximiao, chief researcher with Merchants Union Consumer Finance Co., Ltd. (MUCFC).
With the accelerated opening-up of the bank card clearing market, the market competition will be fiercer, and related products and services will be richer, which means consumers and merchants will receive more differentiated and refined services, added Dong.
In the view of Pang Ming, chief economist with JLL Greater China, the action plan promotes further openness in areas such as banking, insurance, bond markets, and private equity funds, which reflects the policy orientation of actively expanding high-level financial opening-up, promoting comprehensive institutional opening-up of the financial market, and continuously and significantly expanding market access to financial services.
In the future, by constantly improving related policy arrangements, unifying market systems and rules, and lifting the quality and efficiency of financial services, better support can be provided for building a market-oriented, law-based and first-class international business environment, added Pang.
-- Easing access for foreign investment to sci-tech innovation
The action plan also clarifies to launch pilot programs to relax foreign entry thresholds in scientific and technological (sci-tech) innovation, proposing to allow the free trade zones in places like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong to select several qualified foreign-invested enterprises, and carry out pilot programs to expand opening-up in fields like the development and application of genetic diagnosis and treatment technologies.
Currently, the development and application of human stem cells, genetic diagnosis and treatment technologies are still forbidden areas for foreign investment, however, judging from the above narrative in the action plan, it is possible that pilot programs will be implemented in some free trade zones to ease access for foreign investment to this field and explore related regulatory measures, noted Cui Fan, a professor with the School of International Trade and Economics, University of International Business and Economics.
To further relax the thresholds for foreign investment in sci-tech innovation is helpful for China to broaden the fields and improve the quality of foreign investment utilization, said Nie Pingxiang, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, adding that this reflects China mainly relies on carrying out pilot programs to expand opening-up in free trade zones, free trade ports and the service sector for rules exploration, so as to steadily promote institutional opening-up.
The action plan stresses to improve the administration system of pre-establishment national treatment plus negative lists, fully lift restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing industry, and continuously promote the expansion of openness in fields such as telecommunications and healthcare.
Cui Fan analyzed that foreign-invested enterprises are the link connecting domestic and overseas markets, and by making continuous efforts to promote opening-up in biomedicine, healthcare and value-added telecommunications among other fields, foreign investment in China is bound to steadily improve.
-- Supporting data flow between foreign-funded enterprises and their headquarters
The action plan clarifies to support data flow between foreign-funded enterprises and their headquarters, and foster safe and orderly cross-border flow of the research and development, production and sales data of foreign-invested enterprises through efforts like carrying out data export safety assessments, standardizing filing of standard contracts for personal information export, etc.
The above-mentioned policies are conducive to promoting sci-tech exchanges and cooperation between China and foreign countries, and improving the business environment for foreign-invested enterprises, said Cui Fan.
The action plan also mentions to develop cross-border data transfer standards for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), and rely on major cooperation platforms such as the Guangdong-Macao in-depth cooperation zone in Hengqin and the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone to establish a cross-border data flow mechanism for Hong Kong and Macao enterprises and explore the establishment of a "white list" system for cross-border data flow, steadily promoting the convenient flow of data within the GBA.
The action plan also fully grants national treatment to foreign-invested enterprises in their high-concerned areas such as intellectual property rights, government procurement, tendering and bidding, formulation of standards, etc., noted Nie Pingxiang.
The implementation of the above-mentioned policies will bring more opportunities to multinational companies, especially in high-end manufacturing, modern services and sci-tech innovation, sharing with them major opportunities of high-quality development of the Chinese economy, Nie said.
(Edited by Gu Shanshan with Xinhua Silk Road, gushanshan.1987@163.com)
A single purchase
