The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) held a press conference on September 29 in the large conference room on the third floor of the National Development and Reform Commission's Central Annex Building to introduce the work related to deepening reform and opening up.
Since the 18th Party Congress, China has steadfastly expanded its openness to the outside world and achieved important results in the use of foreign investment.
First, the scale of foreign investment utilization has been growing steadily. In the past decade, the scale of China's investment attraction has been steadily ranked among the top three in the world. 2021 saw China's actual use of foreign investment reach RMB 1.15 trillion, ranking second in the world, up 62.9% from 2012. In the first eight months of this year, China's actual use of foreign investment was RMB892.74 billion, still maintaining double-digit growth on the basis of last year's high base.
Secondly, legal protection has been improved. 2020 saw the formal implementation of the Foreign Investment Law, which established the basic system for the promotion, protection and management of foreign investment and ensured the effective implementation of the foreign investment pre-entry national treatment plus negative list management system.
Third, access to foreign investment has become more open. We have reduced the negative list of foreign investment access for five consecutive years, reducing the number of restrictive measures to 31 and 27 for the whole country and the Pilot Free Trade Zone respectively, and launched a series of major liberalisation measures in areas such as automobiles and finance, which have attracted more foreign enterprises to operate in China.
Fourthly, the promotion measures have become stronger. We have revised the Catalogue of Industries Encouraging Foreign Investment several times, and the current 2020 version of the catalogue has a total of 1,235 entries, and encouraged foreign investment projects to enjoy a number of preferential policies such as tax exemptions for imported self-use equipment.
Fifth, market competition has become fairer. For three consecutive years, various departments and localities have cleaned up laws, regulations and regulatory documents that are inconsistent with the Foreign Investment Law, and a total of over 500 documents have been promoted to be "amended and repealed", fully guaranteeing fair competitive treatment for foreign-funded enterprises.
In the next step, China will thoroughly implement the decision and deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and work with various departments and localities to effectively implement the policies and measures to stabilise foreign investment.
First, the 2022 version of the Catalogue of Industries Encouraging Foreign Investment will be stepped up. The new version of the Catalogue will further expand the scope of encouragement and guide foreign investment into key areas such as manufacturing and productive services, as well as the central and western and northeastern regions.
Secondly, we will introduce special policies to attract investment in the manufacturing sector. We will soon release policies and measures to promote the increase of foreign investment, stabilise the stock and improve the quality, strengthen investment services, improve the quality of investment attraction and expand the inflow of foreign investment in the manufacturing industry, with a focus on the manufacturing industry.
Thirdly, we will promote the implementation of major foreign investment projects on the ground. We will further improve the mechanism of the Task Force on Major Foreign Investment Projects, promote the implementation of the first five batches of landmark major foreign investment projects, and launch the sixth batch of major foreign investment projects with traction and driving effect in due course.
Fourth, we will strengthen foreign investment services. We will organise a series of activities for international industrial investment cooperation in an appropriate manner to build a platform for multinational companies to invest and for localities to attract investment. We will continue to clear restrictions beyond the negative list of foreign investment access, strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, and ensure that foreign enterprises apply all policies equally and effectively enjoy national treatment.
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