China has pledged to allow foreign automakers to take a majority stake in auto joint ventures through pilot programs scheduled to begin in the first half of 2018, standing by earlier commitments to broaden access in the world’s largest car market.

The long-anticipated announcement, coming from the foreign ministry after Chinese and US companies signed a basket of deals across sectors worth 250 billion US dollars on Thursday, marks the first official timetable permitting the greater play of market forces in an industry that for over three decades has set the cap for foreign investment at 50 percent.

Promised to begin before June next year, these trial programs will held in China’s free trade zones, and will begin with utility vehicles, and with new energy vehicles, furthering China’s push to phase out fossil fuel cars, and provide more technically advanced and affordable clean alternatives. The plan falls in line with remarks made by ministers suggesting that the 50-percent ownership rule for auto joint ventures would not be permanent.

From lavish subsidies, to renewed emission rules and new energy vehicle credit score systems, and a recently unveiled lower down payment policy on purchases of electric automobiles, the nation has employed a trove of administrative measures and market tools to encourage car makers like BYD, BAIC and others, as well as their foreign counterparts to tap into the expanding market. The target for 2020, according to the government, is to sell two million new energy cars each year.

US electric vehicle giant Tesla confirmed last month that it is in talks with the Shanghai government to establish a manufacturing plant in the municipality, a move that could dramatically slash the prices of the sleek cars, a rare up-scale option in a clean vehicle market largely dominated by budget home grown models. Tesla has been well received in the nation and China is proving a significant market for the Silicon Valley firm, with sales there more than tripling in the first quarter this year.

Previous media reports claimed that Tesla had inked an agreement with the Shanghai authorities to build a wholly owned plant in the city’s free trade zone, an area where the 25-percent levy would still apply, under present circumstances.  

Cuts would also gradually be made in the future on tariffs over fully imported cars, which has stood at 25 percent for little more than a decade, the ministry also stated, though no further details or target time frame were provided.