China vows supportive policies, optimized services for foreign investors

BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- China will continue to introduce supportive policies and optimize services for foreign investors, a government official said on Thursday.

Liu Sushe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, said that the NDRC, together with relevant departments, will promptly introduce relevant policies, including revising a nationwide negative list for foreign investment access and removing all restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector.

"We strive to solve difficulties and ease barriers faced by foreign-invested enterprises through a package of pragmatic measures, such as increasing support and safeguard policies and aligning with high-standard international economic and trade rules," Liu told a press conference in Beijing.

Liu said that efforts will be made to facilitate the actualization of foreign-invested projects in China, adding that the NDRC in recent years has facilitated seven batches of big foreign-invested projects, with the first six batches producing a total investment value of 73 billion U.S. dollars and the seventh batch of projects, involving biomedicine, automobile manufacturing, new energy batteries, the chemical industry and other fields, expected to realize a planned investment totaling more than 15 billion U.S. dollars.

"We will coordinate and address issues related to land use, sea use, environmental impact assessment, energy consumption and other issues related to project implementation at the national level, and speed up the implementation of major foreign-invested projects," said Liu, who also pledged the government's determination to continue to optimize services.

In addition, the NDRC will engage in a series of activities aimed at international industrial investment promotion and develop a business match-making platform to connect multinationals and investment destinations, Liu said.

Regarding Chinese companies' overseas operations, Liu said the government will promote cooperation with global partners in industrial development, third-party joint ventures, connectivity infrastructure, and livelihood projects, and guide Chinese enterprises to follow market principles and international practices in their efforts to build both high-quality landmark projects and "small but beautiful" projects, and allow these cooperation outcomes to benefit more people and promote global economic development.