Recently, the executive meeting of The State Council reviewed and adopted the Action Plan for stabilizing foreign Investment in 2025. The meeting pointed out that foreign-funded enterprises play an important role in absorbing employment, stabilizing exports and promoting industrial upgrading, and more practical and effective measures should be taken to stabilize the stock and expand the increase.

The utilization of foreign capital is an important part of China's open economic system. In 2024, 59,080 new foreign-invested enterprises will be established nationwide, up 9.9 percent year on year. But the actual use of foreign capital 826.25 billion yuan, down significantly.

Zhang Fei, deputy director of the Foreign Investment Institute of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, analyzed that in recent years, global transnational investment has shown a trend of service and asset-light, the scale of foreign investment in China's service industry accounts for about 70%, and small and medium-sized service enterprises account for a relatively high proportion of newly established foreign-funded enterprises, which affects the scale and growth of the actual use of foreign investment in China to a certain extent. But at the same time, we should also see that last year, China's high-tech manufacturing and professional technical services and other fields, the use of foreign investment still maintained a high growth rate, foreign investment in promoting high-quality economic development still played a significant role.

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee made it clear that we should promote orderly opening up of telecommunications, Internet, education, culture, medical care and other fields. At present, China is still facing challenges in attracting foreign investment, and "stabilizing foreign investment" will be a long-term focus. China has issued the Action Plan to stabilize foreign investment in 2025 to achieve the goal of stabilizing stock, promoting increase and improving quality, so as to better attract and utilize foreign investment.

The executive meeting of The State Council pointed out that it is necessary to expand independent opening up in an orderly manner, deepen the pilot of opening up in relevant fields, implement the comprehensive cancellation of restrictions on foreign access in the manufacturing field, optimize the comprehensive pilot demonstration of expanding the opening up of the national service industry, and expand the scope of industries to encourage foreign investment. Last year, China continued to relax market access for foreign investment, sending out a positive signal of expanding opening-up and welcoming foreign investment. We will lift all restrictions on foreign investment in the manufacturing sector, and promote the registration of more pilot enterprises in the biotechnology sector. Four departments, including the National Health Commission and the Ministry of Commerce, issued the "Pilot Work Plan for Expanding the Opening up of wholly Owned Hospitals", allowing the establishment of wholly foreign-owned hospitals in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and the whole island of Hainan (except traditional Chinese medicine, excluding the merger and acquisition of public hospitals). China will steadily promote the opening up of the service industry, especially expand the pilot opening up of telecommunications, medical care and education in accordance with the arrangements of the Central Economic Work Conference, said Li Yong 箑, deputy representative of international trade negotiations of the Ministry of Commerce.

The meeting pointed out that it is necessary to continue to build the brand of "invest in China", increase domestic reinvestment support for foreign enterprises, encourage foreign equity investment in China, and optimize the rules and procedures for foreign mergers and acquisitions. Last year, the Ministry of Commerce held 28 "Invest in China" investment promotion activities at home and abroad, held 15 round-table meetings for foreign-funded enterprises, and coordinated to solve more than 300 difficult problems for foreign-funded enterprises. This year, the Ministry of Commerce will improve the "full life cycle" investment promotion working mechanism such as investment promotion, project docking, landing guarantee, and do a good job in the "Invest in China" key activities to attract investment.

To better attract and utilize foreign investment, we should treat both domestic and foreign enterprises equally in government procurement and other work, expand financing channels for foreign enterprises, and step up IPR protection. It is necessary to provide better services for foreign-funded projects, and provide more convenience for the exchange of foreign workers in terms of entry, exit, stay and residence. He Yadong, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, said that it supports domestic and foreign enterprises to participate in large-scale equipment renewal, government procurement, bidding and other activities, and provides a level playing field for foreign enterprises.

Source: Chinese government website