China will continue to amend and expand its industrial catalogue for encouraging overseas investment, while pushing key overseas invested projectsin the country, a government official from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Su Wei, Deputy Secretary General of the NDRC, China’s top economic planner, introduced a number of measures the NDRC is planning to take to further push opening-up and stabilize foreign investment at the press conference.

According to Su, China will further amend and enlarge the scope of its industrial catalogue for encouraging overseas investment, as well as directing overseas capital to key areas like manufacturing, production services industries, and key regions like northeast China.

The NDRC is sorting out the reserves of overseas invested projects in different regions to prepare for the launch of a new round of key overseas invested projects at the appropriate time.

The previous five rounds of overseas invested projects, including the Shenyang BMW plant No.3 are proceeding smoothly, Su disclosed.

China will also enhance services for overseas investors, such as organizing promotional activities for international industries’ investment cooperation, as well as continue to perfect investment environment for overseas investors.

In particular, Su mentioned that the government will continue to clear restrictions out of the overseas investment negative list and strengthen protection of intellectual property rights.

China’s continued efforts to open up its economy have generated many positive results in the past years. Officials disclosed at the aforementioned press conference that China’s actual usage of foreign capital amounted to 1.15 trillion yuan ($172 billion) in 2021, the second largest in the world and up 62.9 percent compared with 2012.

Su also noted that China has taken a range of measures to remove investment hurdles for overseas investors, such as shortening the foreign investment negative list for five years continuously ending 2021, while amending or abolishing up to 500 documents that are not in line with the foreign investment law.

Global Times