China rolls out welcome mat for foreign investors though policies

Editor's note: Ma Xiaobai is a research fellow of the Development Research Center of China's State Council. Hu Shiyun is a PhD student of Peking University. The article reflects the authors' opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

High-level opening-up is a hot topic during China's key annual political meetings, the "Two Sessions." The country has unveiled various policies to attract foreign investment at both national and local levels.

China has been one of the most popular FDI destinations over the years and has benefited from FDI. To counter global competition and attract more investment, China is actively optimizing its foreign investment environment.

This includes national policies like the "Opinions on Further Optimizing the Foreign Investment Environment," which put forward 24 policy measures, and local initiatives such as Shanghai's "Measures to Increase the Attraction and Utilization of Foreign Investment."

Shanghai offered preferential policies in terms of land use, tax incentives, financial support, talent attraction, and administrative services for foreign-invested projects in the fields of integrated circuits, biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and new energy vehicles. Moreover, the city has extended the pilot program, Qualified Foreign Limited Partnership (QFLP), to expedite cross-border capital flow. 

Likewise in February, Fujian Province issued 25 measures to further optimize the environment and attract foreign investment into the province. A salient feature of these policies is to foster the cooperation between foreign and Chinese enterprises, institutions, and universities, especially in the field of biomedicine.

Other provinces, such as Zhejiang and Guangdong, have also implemented similar measures to enhance their regional competitiveness and openness. Favorable tax and financial policies, expedited administrative procedure, and more flexible immigration policies have become the prevalent themes in their measures.

Other than making policies, the Chinese government also values the opinions and feedback of foreign investors and strives to be responsive to their needs and concerns.

One of the ways that the Ministry of Commerce has played a positive role is by organizing the roundtable meetings of foreign-invested enterprises, which are held every month, covering various aspects of promoting bilateral economic and trade exchanges, ensuring the landing of key foreign-invested projects, continuously optimizing the business environment, and supporting the implementation of major regional strategies.

The actions taken by the Chinese government are showing their effects. Foreign investors are more confident about China's business environment and future opportunities. 

For instance, ExxonMobil, a global energy firm, has invested more than 31 billion yuan in its ethylene project in Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, and plans to invest another 10 billion yuan this year, preparing for the production by the end of the year.

Starbucks, the world's largest coffee chain, has set a goal of opening 9,000 stores in China by 2025, and will continue to invest in China, which is set to become Starbucks' largest market in the world.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, the satisfaction of foreign-invested enterprises with China's business environment continued to improve, with more than 90 percent of the surveyed enterprises rating "satisfied" or above for the indicators of "cross-border trade" and "market access," according to a survey conducted by China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

China's economic cooperation with the global market is mutually beneficial and win-win. With this in mind, China is committed to building a new development paradigm with domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other. At the same time, China is also committed to pursuing a higher-level opening up to the world, adhering to the principles of cooperation, openness, inclusiveness, and mutual benefit. 

Hence, China welcomes more foreign investment and participation in its development, and will provide a fair, transparent, and predictable environment for foreign investors. Finally, China is confident that it will achieve its long-term and high-quality development goals, and will continue to make greater contributions to world economic recovery and prosperity.