NDRC: China will continue opening-up, shorten negative list

China will continue to open up its economy and shorten the negative list, enabling a better business environment for foreign investment, according to the country's top economic planner.

"We will persist in developing a high-level open economy, fully implementing the management system on pre-establishment national treatment and negative lists and taking measures to encourage foreign investment," said Ning Jizhe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, on Wednesday, during a press conference on the sidelines of the two sessions.

Ning said China will further shorten the negative list on market entry, introducing more open measures in the fields of agriculture, mining, manufacturing and services and allowing foreign investment to run more wholly foreign-owned enterprises in more areas.

A new list of foreign-invested industries will be released, he said. The list aims to encourage more foreign investment in new fields, as foreign investment will play a key role in the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, development of emerging industries and regional coordinated development.

Non-financial foreign direct investment in China rose 3 percent to $135 billion last year. And the number of newly established foreign invested companies increased by nearly 70 percent in 2018.