In 2016, Chinese MOFCOM comprehensively carried out the spirits of the 18th National People’s Congress and the third, fourth, fifth and six plenary sessions of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC, profoundly learned and carried out the spirits of series of speeches of General Secretary Xi Jinping, firmly established the development concept of innovation, coordination, greening, openness and common sharing, deeply analyzed and studied the current domestic and overseas economic situation focusing on accelerating building new open economic system, strived to promote the reform of the management system of foreign investment, further expanded opening up and strived to optimize the environment of foreign investment. All kinds of work made positive achievements.
The scale of foreign investment attraction remained stable. In January-November, the newly-established foreign-invested enterprises in China reached 24,355, with an increase of 3.0% year on year. The actual use of foreign capital amount was RMB731.8 billion (equals to US$113.79 billion), with an increase of 3.9% year on year (not including data of bank, security and insurance fields). Firstly, the foreign investment structure accelerates the shift to the high-end of industrial chain. The actual use of foreign investment amount of service industry reached RMB513.3 billion, with an increase of 97.7% year on year. The actual use of foreign capital of high-tech manufacturing industry was RMB54.73 billion, with an increase of 3.6% year on year. Secondly, the investment of the United States in China showed restorative increase. The investment from the United States and 28 countries of the EU in China went up 55.4% and 43.9% year on year respectively. Among 28 countries of the EU, the investment of Britain, Germany, Luxemburg and Sweden in China increased 120.2%, 87.2%, 128.8% and 48.1% respectively. Thirdly, the proportion of ways of merger and acquisition was greatly improved. The foreign-invested enterprises established through merger and acquisition reached 1,099 and the actual use of foreign investment amount was RMB123.5 billion, with an increase of 15.6% year on year, accounting for 4.5% and 16.9% of the number of newly-established foreign-invested enterprises and the actual use of foreign investment amount.
The management system of foreign investment realized significant reforms. Based on successful exploration and test of the free trade pilot area, the National People’s Congress examined and revised four laws such as The Law on Foreign-funded Enterprises. Since October 2016, the establishment and alteration procedure of foreign-invested enterprises that China stipulates and implements regarding the access of the special management measures would not be involved, and the approval had been changed to filing management instead, which realized a significant reform of the management system of China’s foreign investment. Approved by the State Council, the MOFCOM published the announcement with National Development and REFORM Commission and defined the scale of the access of special management measures of foreign investment. MOFCOM published The Temporal Method of Establishment and Alteration Recording Management of Foreign-invested Enterprises and defined relevant procedures. Since the implementation of the filing system, 95% foreign-invested enterprises were established through filing. This greatly improved the degree of investment facilitation of foreign investment.
The construction of free trade pilot areas was comprehensively promoted. MOFCOM played the role of the office of inter-ministerial joint conference of free trade pilot area of the State Council and promoted the four free trade pilot areas of Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian to take the institutional innovation as the core and conducted reform exploration in many aspects such as investment, trade, finance and the construction of supervision system in the courts and afterwards. The implementation rate of pilot tasks exceeded 90% and obvious achievements had been obtained. In January-October 2016, the free trade pilot areas of Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian established 117,900 enterprises in total. Among these, 110,200 were domestic enterprises, with a registered capital of RMB3.85696 trillion; 7,729 were foreign-invested enterprises, attracting contractual foreign investment of RMB549.22 billion. Efforts would be made to carry out and implement the decision and deployment of the State Council on the free trade pilot areas of Liaoning, Zhejiang, Henan, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan and Shanxi, and to get together with the relevant departments and seven provinces and the municipal people’s governments to carry out the follow-up implementation work. MOFCOM, together with the relevant departments, summarized and assessed the reform and test experience of a new batch of 19 free trade areas and submitted it to the State Council to spread to the whole country.
Opening wider to the outside world was orderly promoted. MOFCOM, together with National Development and Reform Commission, revised The Catalogue for Guidance of Foreign Investment again and further broadened the admittance restriction of industries. Efforts had been made to start the revision of The Catalogue for Advantageous Industry of Foreign Investment of the Central and Western Areas and to expand the scale of central and western areas encouraging the foreign investment. Efforts had also been made to comprehensively realized the basic liberation of service trade between the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao and to promote the service industry in Beijing to expand the in-depth development of comprehensive pilots and to release relevant pilot measures for 118 pilot tasks. The implementation rate was 83% and the completion rate was 73%.
The construction of open carrier platform obtained new results. MOFCOM positively promoted to introduce and implemented The Guidance of Improving Appraisal System of National Economic and Technical Development Zones and Promoting Innovation to Drive Development by the General Office of the State Council, organized to conduct the evaluation work of national economic and development zones in 2016, strengthened classified guidance and promoted the transformation, upgrading and innovative development zones. Efforts had also been made to support Suzhou industrial park to gain favorable progress in open and innovative comprehensive test and to forge an upgrading version of China’s development zone. Efforts had been made to carry out and implement The Opinions of Policies and Measures of Supporting Development and Opening of Key Border Areas by the State Council, to take various measures to improve the development of border economic cooperation zone and to promote the opening of border areas. Mohan-Boten economic cooperation zone between China and Laos was approved and established by the State Council and the department cooperation documents of constructing Erenhot-Zamin Uud cross-border economic cooperation zones between China and Mongolia were signed to constantly promote the construction of the cross-border economic cooperation zones.
2017 marks a significant year of implementing the “13th Five-Year” plan and a year to deepen the structure reform of supply side. MOFCOC will implement all kinds of tasks defined by the Central Economic Working Conference according to the deployment of the Central Party Committee and the State Council. It will continue to insist on the measure of taking use of foreign investment positively and effectively, blaze new trails in a pioneering spirit, forge ahead with determination, strive to build a new system of foreign investment, forge a new open pattern, cultivate favorable environment of business, make efforts to improve the quality and level of foreign investment attraction and make China an attractive hot land for foreign investment so as to embrace the successful convening of the 19th National Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.
Source: http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/newsrelease/significantnews/201701/20170102498476.shtml
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