China on Sunday announced to life all access restrictions on foreign investment in the manufacturing industry, as part of the latest efforts to promote wider opening up to the rest of the world.
The 2024 "negative list" for foreign investment access, issued on the Sunday, will come into effect on Nov. 1, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's economic planner. This marks the first update to the "negative list" in three years.
According to the latest version, the only two restrictions for the manufacturing sector - "publication and printing must be controlled by Chinese parties" and "the application of processing techniques such as steaming, frying, roasting, and calcining for traditional Chinese medicine, and the production of confidential prescriptions for Chinese patent medicines" will be removed.
It means that from Nov 1, foreign-invested firms will fully enjoy the same access treatment in China's manufacturing field as their Chinese counterparts.
"Lifting all access restrictions on foreign investment in the manufacturing sector is an important measure to build new systems for a higher-level open economy. It marks China's further progress in high-level opening up and demonstrates China's unswerving determination to promote investment liberalization and facilitation," said Hua Zhong, director of the Department of Foreign Capital and Overseas Investment under the NDRC.
The foreign investment access negative list has undergone several revisions since China first issued the negative list for the Shanghai Free Trade Zone in 2013. Over the past decade, the total number of items on the "negative list," or restricted sectors for foreign investment, has now been reduced from 93 items to 29 in the latest version.
"Expanding opening-up to the world has proved to be a very beneficial attempt by China to actively explore a path of opening-up with Chinese characteristics. The move to gradually reduce restrictive and prohibited items on the negative list has played a very positive role in attracting foreign investment into China," said Zhang Wei, vice president of Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce.
Foreign investment in China has covered 20 categories of industries and 115 major industry sectors.
From 2017 to 2023, paid-in foreign investment in China increased 25 percent, and that in high-tech manufacturing up 37.4 percent.
"Everything which opens the market, we appreciate. China really has [a strong] manufacturing base. We really want to be localized, with local talents engaged, with local innovation, local research and development, and of course, our local manufacturing. And I believe we will see also trends in the future that innovation in China, for China will be expanded to innovation to global markets from China," said Maximilian Butek, executive director of German Chamber of Commerce in China-East China.
In the future, China will further ease market access for foreign investment in the service sector, promote orderly opening up of such areas as telecommunications, Internet and education, and encourage and guide foreign investment in sectors like advanced manufacturing, modern service industries, high-tech, energy conservation and environmental protection.
"We will expand the opening of the comprehensive pilot demonstration in the service sector, enhance opening-up and innovation in emerging areas such as value-added telecom, health care, the digital economy and new types of consumption, and encourage more long-term, high-quality foreign investment into China's capital market," said Meng Huating, deputy director-general of the Foreign Investment Department under the Ministry of Commerce.
China lifts all access restrictions on foreign investment in manufacturing sector
