Xi says China will allow foreign investment in more areas

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01:01

China will allow foreign investors to operate businesses in more sectors with controlling or full stake as fair competition beefs up efficiency while ushering in prosperity, President Xi Jinping said Friday.

Xi made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the second Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation in Beijing.

He said China will roll out a new batch of pilot free trade zones and speed up the building of free trade ports.

"China has put into practice a foreign capital management model composed of the pre-establishment national treatment and negative list," he said. "In the future, we will continue to slash the negative list on a large scale. And we will spur all-round opening up of modern service industry manufacturing industry and agriculture to allow foreign capital in more fields with controlling or full stake."

The president said the world's second-largest economy is to work out the associated policies concerning its Foreign Investment Law to facilitate trade.

Supply-side structural reforms will be pressed ahead under the principles of fair competition, openness and cooperation to effectively phase out backward and excessive production capacity on the one hand, and improve the quality and efficiency of the supply system on the other, according to Xi.

With the theme of "Belt and Road Cooperation, Shaping a Brighter Shared Future," the second BRF, scheduled from April 25 to 27 with 12 thematic forums, aims to bring about high-quality cooperation under the Belt and Road framework.