Greater efforts will be made to attract foreign investment, and the four departments will release important signals!

Text/Wang Enbo

　　China is making major moves to stabilize foreign investment.

　　The General Office of the State Council recently issued the blockbuster document "Action Plan for Solidly Promoting High-level Opening to the Outside World and Making Greater Efforts to Attract and Utilize Foreign Investment."

The National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, the People's Bank of China, and the National Immigration Administration collectively attended the State Council's regular policy briefing on the 20th to respond to multiple hot issues and release important information.

Responding to the fluctuations in the scale of foreign investment: significant advantages in the future

　　Regarding the fluctuations in the scale of China's actual utilization of foreign capital, Wu Hao, Secretary-General of the National Development and Reform Commission, responded that from a global perspective, it is normal for global cross-border investment to rise and fall.

In January this year, the "Global Investment Trends Observation" published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development showed that after excluding the factors of transnational enterprises' investment transit places, global cross-border investment will drop by 18% in 2023.

"Under such a general environment, China has maintained a good momentum in attracting foreign investment."

　　Wu Hao said that although purely in terms of numbers, China's scale of attracting foreign investment will fluctuate to a certain extent in 2023, more objective conclusions can be drawn from both "quantitative" and "qualitative" aspects.

In terms of volume, China’s actual utilization of foreign capital exceeded 1.1 trillion yuan last year, the third highest level in history.

Qualitatively, China's foreign investment structure continues to optimize. In 2023, the proportion of investment in high-tech industries will account for 37.4%, an increase of 1.3 percentage points from 2022; the proportion of investment in the manufacturing sector will reach 27.9%, an increase of 1.6 percentage points.

　　Looking at future trends, Wu Hao emphasized that China has significant advantages and broad space in attracting foreign investment.

China is the world's largest market with the greatest growth potential, and will continue to unleash huge demand in advanced manufacturing, new urbanization, and consumption structure upgrades.

　　At the same time, China has a good and stable policy environment and the most complete industrial system in the world, which can provide foreign investment with a highly efficient and reliable industrial supporting system.

China's increasingly complete infrastructure network, sufficient human resources, and rich innovative application scenarios can create good investment space for foreign investors to expand in new technologies, new industries, and new business formats.

　　Wu Hao said that the number of newly established foreign-invested enterprises in China increased by 39.7% last year, which fully reflects the enthusiasm of foreign investors to share opportunities in the Chinese market and their confidence in future investment prospects.

The catalog of industries that encourage foreign investment is being revised, with manufacturing being the focus

　　This year's government work report calls for expanding the list of industries that encourage foreign investment, and the "Action Plan" also makes arrangements.

The current 2022 version of the catalog of industries that encourage foreign investment has a total of 1,474 entries, including 519 entries in the "National Catalog of Industries that Encourage Foreign Investment" and 955 entries in the "Catalogue of Advantageous Industries for Foreign Investment in Central and Western Regions."

Qualified encouraged foreign investments can enjoy tax, land supply and other policy preferences in accordance with the law.

　　Hua Zhong, head of the Department of Utilization of Foreign Capital and Overseas Investment of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that the National Development and Reform Commission, together with relevant departments, has started the revision of the catalog of industries that encourage foreign investment. During the revision process, they will fully communicate with foreign chambers of commerce and foreign-invested enterprises to listen to opinions and demands from all parties.

　　Preliminary consideration is that the revision of the national catalog will continue to focus on manufacturing to encourage foreign investment, while promoting the integrated development of the service industry and manufacturing industry, and increasing support for advanced manufacturing, modern service industry, high-tech, energy conservation and environmental protection and other fields. .

The revision of the catalog in the central and western regions will fully tap the local resource endowments and industrial conditions, and increase support for basic manufacturing, applicable technology, people's livelihood consumption and other fields according to local conditions.

The transaction volume of "Northbound Swap Connect" reaches 1.2 trillion yuan, and the quota can be adjusted to increase

　　Zhou Yu, head of the International Department of the People's Bank of China, said that the northbound link between Hong Kong and the mainland's interest rate swap market ("Swap Connect") has been operating very smoothly since its opening in May last year, with transaction volume reaching 1.2 trillion yuan as of the end of last month. .

　　According to relevant rules, the initial market-wide daily net trading limit of the "Northbound Swap Connect" is 20 billion yuan, and the clearing limit is 4 billion yuan.

Zhou Yu said that judging from the current situation, the existing quota is completely sufficient.

If the quota is insufficient in the future, there is also a communication mechanism between the People's Bank of China and the Hong Kong regulatory authorities, and they will consider increasing the quota in a timely manner based on the actual market development.

　　Zhou Yu said that China is steadily expanding the two-way opening of the financial market, and market interconnection mechanisms such as Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect, Bond Connect, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Wealth Management Connect are currently operating relatively stably.

At the same time, we are constantly exploring new measures to make investment activities under these mechanisms more convenient for investors.

　　She said that as of the end of February, the total amount of Chinese bonds held by overseas institutions was 3.95 trillion yuan, and the growth rate has been maintained at around 30% in recent years. This also shows the results of the opening up of China's financial market from one aspect and illustrates the success of China's bonds. market attractiveness.

Port visa issuance volume returns to pre-epidemic levels

　　Jia Tongbin, head of the Foreigners Management Department of the National Immigration Administration, said that since 2023, the department has introduced more than 20 policies and measures to continuously attract and promote foreigners to come to China and provide service guarantees for them to work and live in China.

　　In terms of continuing to optimize policies and measures for foreigners coming to China, timely resume and gradually relax the conditions for applying for port visas, carry out port visa services at more ports open to the outside world, and provide ordinary passport holders who urgently need to come to China to engage in business cooperation, visits and exchanges, investment and entrepreneurship, and tourism Port visa entry is facilitated for foreigners traveling for sightseeing and other purposes.

　　At present, more than 950,000 person-times have been processed, and the number of issuances has returned to pre-epidemic levels; the coverage of the transit visa-free policy has been steadily expanded, and 72/144 hours are implemented for personnel from 54 countries at 31 ports open to the outside world in 18 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) The visa-free transit policy allows a total of 550,000 foreigners who come to China for exchanges, cooperation, and business negotiations to transit through the country without a visa.

　　In terms of actively providing visa convenience for international business personnel, foreigners who are engaged in commercial cooperation, investment and entrepreneurship and other business activities in China and who need to travel multiple times for legitimate reasons can be issued a valid multiple-entry visa within 5 years, and can be issued to the nearest Just apply for visa extension, renewal or reissue.

　　Jia Tongbin revealed that after the implementation of the above policies, the number of people applying for visas in China increased by 150% year-on-year.

In accordance with the deployment of the "Action Plan", two-year visas are issued to foreign managers and technical personnel of foreign-invested enterprises. Accompanying spouses and minor children can apply for visas of the same period, and can also go through relevant extension or replacement procedures to further serve and promote international Business people communicate and socialize.

Continue to build the “Invest in China” brand

　　Last year, in accordance with the deployment of the State Council, the Ministry of Commerce innovatively launched a series of "Investment in China Year" activities.

The "Action Plan" requires continued building of the "Invest in China" brand.

　　Zhu Bing, director of the Foreign Investment Management Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that this year the Ministry of Commerce will combine "going out" investment promotion and "inviting in" investment promotion, and will hold more than 20 high-quality events at home and abroad.

On the morning of March 26, the first landmark event will be held at the National Convention Center together with the Beijing Municipal People's Government. Registrations from multinational companies have been very enthusiastic. Currently, more than 60 executives above the level of president in China have confirmed their participation.

In addition, a series of activities such as "CIIE Goes to Local Areas" and local theme promotion will be held in various places.

　　Zhu Bing also said that last year, the Ministry of Commerce upgraded and established a roundtable system for foreign-funded enterprises to actively listen to the opinions, suggestions and appeals of foreign-funded enterprises.

So far, 17 various roundtable meetings have been organized and held, more than 600 difficult issues reported by foreign enterprises have been coordinated and solved, and a new batch of key foreign investment projects have been sorted out.

In the future, roundtable meetings with foreign-invested enterprises will be held every month to coordinate and resolve the difficult demands of enterprises in a timely manner.