BEIJING, March 8 -- The annual sessions of China's national legislature and top political consultative body have signaled business opportunities for foreign investors.

Struggling with slowing economic expansion, mounting environmental pressure and rising labor costs at home, China is seeking new growth engines by opening its doors more widely.

Premier Li Keqiang said Thursday in his government work report that China will halve the number of industries in which foreign investment is restricted.

The government will improve how it regulates foreign investment and creates a "stable, fair, transparent and predictable" business environment, the premier said.

The country plans to make service and manufacturing sectors more accessible.

By enacting new laws, China will lower thresholds for foreign companies and better safeguard their legitimate interests, Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said at a press conference on the sidelines of the national legislature annual session.

China topped the world for foreign direct investment in 2014, with 119.6 billion U.S. dollars coming into the country, and the number of new foreign-funded companies increased by 5.76 percent to 38,400 last year.

"Foreign investors have enjoyed discounts in land sales and taxation for latest decades, but suffered from defective laws and vague policies," said Sun Lijian, a senior finance researcher at Fudan University.

Some investors failed as they could not adapt to this environment, others resorted to bribery in the context of inadequate law enforcement, Sun said.

"But the situation might change soon," he said.

China will buy advanced technologies, critical equipment and important components from foreign producers, the premier said.

Feng Zhengzhou, president of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export, saw it a significant shift after a long period in which China has been known as a big importer of raw materials.

Along with independent innovation, technological advancement is a must as China climbs up the global value chain, Feng said.

China will develop regional infrastructure networks in the the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives, the government work report said.

Zhu Cuiping, an expert on the Indian Ocean region at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, predicted huge investment into railways, highways and logistics infrastructure helping link China with countries along the two routes.

"Foreign companies used to be shackled with more restrictions in inland China than in coastal regions," Zhu said. "Supported by the new strategy, land-locked provinces like Yunnan might see more foreign investment."

Foreign firms are interested in the free trade zones (FTZ) that China is building to test reform and opening measures.

After establishing its first pilot FTZ in Shanghai in 2013, China approved similar zones in Guangdong in the south, Tianjin in the north and Fujian in the east.

A recent poll by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China showed that 44.4 percent of enterprises surveyed were interested in investing in those FTZs.