China’s new measures touched upon such metrics as convenience, promotion and protection of investment, showing the country’s determination to achieve greater openness and transparency.

Nearly 90 foreign companies invested a total of about 76 billion yuan in China’s Anhui Province at this year’s World Manufacturing Conference in the capital city Hefei, covering fields like new materials, new energy as well as culture and modern service. The country’s favorable investment environment is attracting more foreign companies to expand business in a wider range of sectors.

Sang Baichuan, a professor from the University of International Business and Economics, said that the China’s remarkable achievements of foreign capital utilization can be attributed to its increasingly balanced, efficient and safe economic system as well its efforts to build a more fair, open and transparent business environment.

In recent years, the country has become a major destination for foreign capital, Sang said. The scale of foreign capital in China is likely to sustain steady growth as a series of policies may produce active effects this year.

Foreign companies would not only get used to the business environment in China, but also embrace a wide array of preferential policies, including greater openness of the financial sector and incentives for foreign capital merger. Also, qualified foreign investors are permitted to invest in listed companies. Such measures have expanded the sources of investment, which will attract more long-term foreign capital flow to the Chinese market.

Under the guidance of policies, the Chinese business environment for foreign enterprises has been constantly optimized. The central government will further implement the management pattern for foreign investors with pre-entry national treatment plus the negative list. At the same time, market access and investment transparency will be expanded. The entire country will promote a model in which foreign investors can complete business filing and commercial registration at the same time because these two departments have created an information-sharing platform. “These practical measures not only save foreign investors’ costs in time and manpower but also greatly improve the convenience of investment,” Sang said.

China will see continued growth of foreign investment in 2018, according to a recent United Nations report on global investment. A European Union of Commerce in China survey showed that 55 percent of EU companies are optimistic about their future development in China. Also, a poll by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation found that China, after five years, has once again become the place where Japanese manufacturers see the greatest potential for overseas business. “All these results indicate that China remains an attractive destination for foreign investors,” Sang added.

The article was translated from Economic Daily.

(edited by MA YUHONG)