New opening-up policies encourage foreign investment in hi-tech sector

In the first quarter of this year, the number of newly established foreign-funded enterprises in China reached 12,000, an increase of 20.7 percent year-on-year, continuing the rapid growth trend of newly established enterprises since last year. The growth of the number of newly established foreign-funded enterprises serves as a weather vane for future foreign capital arrival.

The country's continuous opening-up and supportive policies are among the key reasons that China continues to be attractive to foreign businesses, despite the United States' intensified attempts at "decoupling" or "de-risking".

In its latest move to this effect, China published measures on Friday that are aimed at promoting overseas investment in the country's technology sector. The country will support overseas institutions to issue yuan bonds and also encourage high-tech companies, including foreign-invested ones, to raise money via bond issuance, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.

It is noteworthy that in terms of investment structure, the proportion of investment in high-tech manufacturing reached 12.5 percent during this period, an increase of 2.2 percentage points year-on-year. Meanwhile, investment in the service industry, which is closely related to residents' lives, also witnessed rapid growth. That demonstrates the continuous optimization of China's investment structure.

In terms of investment scale, the actual use of foreign capital reached 301.67 billion yuan ($41.67 billion) in the first quarter of this year, which was still at a high level.

To attract more foreign investment, the MOC and other relevant departments will make efforts in the following aspects: relaxing foreign investment access, strengthening investment promotion, strengthening service guarantees, creating an open platform, and optimizing the investment environment.

The negative lists for foreign investment access will be rationally shortened, with access restrictions in the manufacturing sector comprehensively canceled, market access for medical, telecommunications and other service industries relaxed; and the catalogue of industries that welcomes foreign investment revised.

It can be said that the basic trend of the long-term improvement of the Chinese economy has not changed. As China continues to advance the development of new quality productive forces and to implement a series of policies to stabilize the economy, promote opening-up, and attract foreign investment, the conditions and environment for the development of foreign investment in the country will become better and better.