China to Ease Restrictions on Foreign Investment in Central and Western ChinaChina will gradually permit foreign investors to invest in more economic areas in central and western China and ease restrictions on foreign investors' shareholding in basic facilities construction.Experiments will be carried out on having foreign funds used in tertiary industry and the area of trade and various forms will be encouraged in using foreign funds to revitalize large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises. Mulling over are various policies concerned and these will be successively put into effect before long. Following China's policies promulgated, foreign investors may invest as shareholders in construction and management of railway branches, local railroads, bridges, tunnels, ferries, urban metro lines, light railways, wharves, oil docks and oil depots, oil and gas pipes, oil and gas exploitation and processing. Exclusive foreign-owned investment endeavors will have to be excluded from a long-term point of view considering China's economic development, said an officer from the State Planning Commission. The officer also said, in principle, China has decided on experiment areas as the tertiary industry and service trades for foreign funds to be used in central and western China. With the approval of concerned departments, such economic areas as commerce, foreign trade, and tourism, especially some service trades, as promised by China to open in WTO entry negotiations, will be allowed first to use foreign capital in provincial capitals in central and western China. These will depend on specific methods being formulated by concerned departments in China. |
| People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ |