Facing the profound and complex changes in the global economic landscape, China remains firmly committed to expanding its opening-up, and will continue to promote reform, development and win-win cooperation through opening-up in 2025, said a deputy chief of the country's top economic planner on Friday.
Speaking at a press conference in Beijing, Zhao Chenxin, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, summarized the great achievements of the country's reform and opening-up over the past year, and briefed on new policy measures to be adopted to promote reform and opening up in 2025.
"First, the 2024 edition of the negative list for foreign investment access was released and put to implementation, with the number of restrictions significantly reduced from 93 in 2015 to 29 now, and with all restrictions in the manufacturing sector lifted. In 2024, it's evident that China has been continuously optimizing its border entry facilitation policies. The number of countries covered by China's unilateral visa-free access policy has increased to 38, and the visa-free transit policy has been extended to 54 countries, with the permitted layover by eligible transit passengers increasing to 10 days," Zhao said.
"Second, relying on the role of dedicated teams for major foreign projects, we have kept proactively providing follow-up services for major foreign investment projects, helping solve problems that arose in the course of project execution. As of now, the first seven batches of 51 projects have achieved a total investment of 92 billion U.S. dollars, with 30 projects already in operation. In the first 11 months of 2024, over 52,000 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in China, a year-on-year growth of 8.9 percent. China is now leveraging its super-large market to attract the gathering of global resources," he said.
"Third, in 2024, China signed new Belt and Road cooperation agreements with 23 other countries and the African Union to promote the construction of major landmark projects and 'small yet smart' livelihood projects in a coordinated manner. In the first 11 months of 2024, the trade volume between China and the countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative reached 2.54 trillion U.S. dollars, accounting for around half of China's total foreign trade," he continued.
The senior official also stressed that China's determination to open up further to the outside world remains unwavering. In 2025, the country will surely take many new measures to improve the systems and mechanisms, policy guidance and service guarantee.
"In terms of systems and mechanisms, we will steadily expand institutional opening-up, further create a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based and internationalized. We will also deepen reform of the foreign investment promotion system and mechanism, and take effective measures to encourage foreign-funded enterprises to reinvest in China. Regarding policy guidance, we will revise and expand the catalog of industries in which foreign investment is encouraged, guiding more foreign investment to advanced manufacturing, modern services, high-tech, energy conservation and environmental protection sectors, as well as to China's central, western and northeastern regions," he said.
"Meanwhile, we will accelerate the preparations for the Hainan Free Trade Port's customs closure operation, further improve the software and hardware conditions for the customs closure operation, and support Hainan in vigorously cultivating and developing an export-oriented economy. For service assurance, a new batch of major foreign investment projects will be launched in due course. The country will continue to build platforms for investment matchmaking between transnationals and local regions, prompt transnationals to increase investment and promote practical cooperation between Chinese and foreign enterprises," Zhao noted.
China to continue promoting reform, opening-up in 2025: authorities
China will firmly fight against economic hegemony, advocate justice, and stick to the right path against the sweeping tariffs by the United States, and will open ever wider to the world no matter how the international situation changes, according to a commentary of The Real Point published on Sunday.
An edited English version of the commentary is as follows:
In response to the U.S. imposition of "reciprocal tariffs" on all trading partners, China issued the Chinese Governments Position on Opposing U.S. Abuse of Tariffs on Saturday, after taking a series of countermeasures.
The thousand-word document pointed out that the United States uses tariffs as a weapon to exert extreme pressure and pursue its own selfish interests, which is a typical act of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying.
The paper also emphasized that China does not provoke trouble but is not afraid of trouble, and will continue to implement a high-level trade and investment liberalization and facilitation policy to share development opportunities and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results with countries around the world.
Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told The Real Point that this position paper demonstrates China's high sense of responsibility to uphold fairness and justice without fear of power politics, which will be conducive to the efforts of the international community to pool together resultant forces and continue promoting economic globalization.
Meanwhile, China's determination to promote high-level opening-up has boosted the courage and confidence of other countries to fight against unilateral bullying and injected certainty into a changing and turbulent world, according to Li.
There are no winners in a trade war and there is no way out for protectionism. When the U.S. complains that the whole world is taking advantage of it, it deliberately distorts a fact that the U.S. is the biggest beneficiary of the world's free trade system since the end of World War II.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations with China in 1979, the United States has long been reaping substantial profits from its economic and trade ties with the country. More than 70,000 American companies have invested and started businesses in China, and exports to China supported 930,000 jobs in the United States, which maintained a huge surplus in service trade in particular.
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2023, the United States exported 46.72 billion U.S. dollars in services to China, and had a trade surplus of 26.57 billion U.S. dollars in services with China.
The Economist criticized the current U.S. trade policy for ignoring the unprecedented prosperity that globalization has brought to the United States.
The U.S. arbitrarily uses tariffs to blackmail other countries at will, attempting to sacrifice the interests of the whole world for U.S. hegemony. But any exertion of pressure and intimidation are useless to China.
This year, in the face of the continuous tariffs imposed by the United States, China has introduced a series of precise and effective measures, as one of the first countries taking countermeasures. The country's move is not only to safeguard its own sovereignty, security and development interests, but also to defend the multilateral trading system and international trade rules.
The world is not a jungle society, and everything must be fair and just. Development is a universal right of all countries in the world, not an exclusive right of a few countries.
The United States has unilaterally imposed tariffs on all its trading partners, violating the WTO's Most-Favored-Nation treatment principle and attempting to subvert the existing international economic and trade order. Its nature is to pursue "America first" and "America special" and deprive other countries of their legitimate right to development.
Over the past days, the European Union, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Australia, Singapore, South Africa, Canada and other countries have been criticizing the United States.
China's position paper clearly states that "international affairs should be addressed through consultation, and the future of the world should be decided by all countries", reflecting the common aspirations of the international community and China's consistent position of speaking and doing fair things.
While the United States continues to build "high walls around a small yard" and erect tariff barriers, China is constantly "opening its doors" and "building bridges and roads" to bring more opportunities to the world.
On March 28, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with representatives of the international business community in Beijing and reiterated that China is determined to promote reform and opening up, China's door will only open wider, and China's policy of welcoming foreign investment has not changed and will not change.
The China Development Forum 2025, held in Beijing from March 23 to 24, attracted more than 80 representatives of multinational companies, among which American companies made up the largest proportion, reaching about one-third.
A report released by global management consulting firm Kearney shows that in the ranking of foreign direct investment confidence in the next three years, China has jumped from 7th to 3rd, and ranked first in the special ranking of emerging markets.
At a time when the world is in turmoil and the United States is abusively imposing tariffs, China's position paper sends a strong message to the world about maintaining the multilateral trading system and promoting economic globalization.
The world wants justice, not hegemony. This is China's clear declaration and the common voice of the international community.
China opposes hegemony, upholds right path against sweeping U.S. tariffs: commentary
