This photo shows a commercial energy-storage system at U.S. carmaker Tesla's Megafactory in Shanghai, which launched production on Feb. 11, 2025, marking a significant expansion of the company's presence in China. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)
BEIJING, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese government vowed during a recent policy briefing to carry out a package of supportive policies to form a "1+N" policy mix in further fostering foreign investment in the country.
When introducing an action plan on ensuring stable foreign investment in 2025 on January 20, government officials said several supportive policy documents on expanding opening-up pilot programs, optimizing business environment, and revising and enlarging the catalogue of industries encouraging foreign investment will be rolled out.
Chinese policymakers are likely to further loosen restrictions on foreign investment access and crank up efforts to create a more optimized business environment for foreign investors.
-- "Subtraction" in easing foreign investment access
Prior to the debut of the 2025 action plan, the Special Administrative Measures (Negative List) for Foreign Investment Access (2024 Edition), was released in September of last year, which lifted all restrictions on admission of foreign investment in manufacturing sector.
Later this year, a revised negative list for market access is scheduled to be unveiled to further trim restrictive items and as the list is applicable to business entities of all types, foreign-funded enterprises can enjoy facilitation measures in more fields, said Zhu Bing, director general of the Department of Foreign Investment Administration of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC).
While reducing restrictions, multiple moves to expand opening-up were also mentioned by these officials during the policy briefing.
In fostering institutional opening-up, Chinese government will move to keep rules, regulations, management and standards in seven sectors in line with high-level international comparables, orderly advance broader opening-up in commodity, service, capital and labor markets, and expand unilateral opening-up to least developed countries.
Currently, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is revising in accordance with feedback from all parties the 2025 catalogue of industries encouraging foreign investment and striving for an early releasing of the 2025 version, introduced Hua Zhong, an official with the department of foreign capital and overseas investment of NDRC.
In the new catalogue, more specific sectors in advanced manufacturing, modern services, high and new technologies, energy saving and environmental protection will be opened to foreign investors, who are also encouraged to invest more in central, western and northeastern China.
In opening-up of service sector, MOC will join hands with other regulators and local authorities to expedite implementation of related piloting policies and include more representative areas with solid development foundations for service industry as pilot areas, according to Zhu.
-- "Addition" in measures to optimize business environment
China will press ahead with foreign investment facilitation, build a better, fairer and more equitable market environment, and reinforce foreign investment-related intellectual property rights protection, according to Zhou Weijun, director of credit supervision and management department of State Administration for Market Regulation during the briefing.
NDRC is mulling policies to improve domestic reinvestment facilitation for foreign-funded businesses, and efforts will be made in simplifying work procedures of related affairs and optimizing financial services to further smooth the path of their reinvestment in China, noted Hua.
In strengthening services guarantee, NDRC will support eligible foreign reinvestment projects by optimizing allocation of production factors of varied types and enhancing support to significant projects with special work teams, added Hua.
At present, mounting external uncertainties have posed challenges to drawing foreign investment, but these measures are likely to strengthen foreign enterprises' confidence in China market and stabilize their investment expectations, helpful to attract more to run business in China, said Zheng Wei, associate researcher with China Outsourcing Institute.
In January, total paid-in foreign investment rose 27.5 percent on month to 97.59 billion yuan, with foreign direct investment from the United Kingdom, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, and Japan surging 324.4 percent, 104.3 percent, 76.1 percent, and 40.7 percent respectively.
(Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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