Source: Economic Reference Time: 2020-01-02
my country's opening to the outside world starts a new journey. On December 31, 2019, the full text of the \"Implementation Regulations of the Foreign Investment Law\" was published and was implemented simultaneously with several important laws and regulations such as the \"Foreign Investment Law\" and the \"Judicial Interpretation of the Foreign Investment Law\" on January 1, 2020. An important support for China's legal business environment. On this basis, my country is still brewing more measures for opening up and upgrading. \"Economic Reference News\" reporter was informed that my country will continue to reduce the negative list, add encouragement catalogs, through \"one reduction and one increase\", to further expand market access. It is worth noting that the Pilot Free Trade Zone and the Free Trade Port, as frontier positions for opening up, are accelerating the first trial of system reform and paving the way for more open measures to be explored.
From the \"Foreign Investment Law\" reviewed and approved at the beginning of the year, to the two editions of the Nationwide and Free Trade Pilot Zone Negative List of Foreign Investment Admissions published in the middle of the year and the 2019 edition of the Catalogue for Encouraging Foreign Investment Industries, to the Opinions on the Work of Making Good Use of Foreign Investment (Guo Fa No. 23), \"Judicial Interpretation of Foreign Investment Law\" and the newly released \"Regulations on the Implementation of Foreign Investment Law\", China will continue to expand its opening in 2019.
\"Overall, compared with the previous years, 2019 is the year when China has the most independent opening measures, the strongest opening, and the deepest level of opening. It has formed a \"combination boxing\" that expands opening and absorbs foreign capital, which has been effectively stabilized. Foreign investment confidence and expectations have effectively guaranteed the realization of the goal of stabilizing foreign investment throughout the year. \"Zong Changqing, director of the Foreign Investment Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said this at the media briefing of the National Business Work Conference held recently.
The reporter learned at the briefing that since 2019, the Ministry of Commerce has taken the lead in organizing the nationwide cleanup of foreign-related laws and regulations, and amended and repealed more than 400 laws and regulations that are inconsistent with the Foreign Investment Law, which provides guarantee for the smooth implementation of the Foreign Investment Law. Among them, the Ministry of Commerce alone abolished 8 departmental rules and 56 normative documents related to foreign investment.
On December 31, 2019, the Ministry of Commerce issued several laws that repealed \"Several Provisions on the Change of Investor Equity of Foreign-invested Enterprises\", \"Implementation Rules for the Administration of Automatic Import Licensing of Foreign-invested Enterprises\", \"Administrative Measures for Foreign-invested Mineral Exploration Enterprises\" and other laws The decision of the law. On the same day, the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Market Supervision issued new versions of the \"Measures for Reporting Information on Foreign Investment\" to guide foreign investors and foreign-invested enterprises to report investment information conveniently and accurately.
With a series of opening measures successively implemented, it has effectively stabilized the confidence and expectations of foreign investment and effectively guaranteed the realization of the goal of stabilizing foreign investment throughout the year. Zong Changqing said that according to statistics, from January to November 2019, the actual use of foreign capital in the country was 845.94 billion yuan, an increase of 6.0% year-on-year, and it is expected to increase by about 5% in RMB throughout the year. Among them, there were 722 large projects with a value of over US$100 million, an increase of 15.5%.
It is worth noting that the achievements of the Pilot Free Trade Zone are particularly remarkable. Tang Wenhong, Director of the Free Trade Zone Port Department of the Ministry of Commerce, introduced that from January to October 2019, there were about 217,000 newly established enterprises and 5,123 foreign-invested enterprises in the original 12 free trade zones; the actual use of foreign capital was 108.39 billion yuan, import and export A total of 3.2 trillion yuan. \"With less than four thousandths of the country’s land area, 14.4% of the country’s foreign investment and 12.5% of imports and exports have been achieved, making a positive contribution to stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment.\" Tang Wenhong said.
Some analysts pointed out that the current global total of transnational investment is still at a relatively low level, the competition for attracting foreign capital is becoming increasingly fierce, and the uncertainty of stabilizing foreign investment has increased. Facing a complex international environment, greater and deeper reform and opening up is the fundamental way out for my country’s development. The Pilot Free Trade Zone and the Free Trade Port, as the frontier positions for my country's opening up, will also assume more tasks of first trial.
For the next specific open measures, various departments have begun to deploy. Zong Changqing revealed that my country will continue to reduce the negative list, add encouragement catalogs, and further expand market access through \"one reduction and one increase\". In addition, a service system for foreign investment and a complaint mechanism for foreign-funded enterprises will be established to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of foreign-funded enterprises.
As an expanded \"stress test zone\", the FTZ is brewing a bigger breakthrough in the negative list system. Tang Wenhong said that the Ministry of Commerce will work with relevant departments to further reduce the negative list of foreign investment access in the Pilot Free Trade Zone, explore the establishment of a cross-border service trade negative list management system in the Pilot Free Trade Zone, and promote rules, regulations, management, and standards. Intensify the exploration of institutional opening, and accumulate experience to achieve a higher level of opening to the outside world.
Regarding the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port, which has attracted much attention, Tang Wenhong revealed that Hainan Free Trade Port will highlight investment freedom and trade freedom, implement the market access commitment and entry system, improve the property rights protection system, adhere to the financial service of the real economy, and implement more openness. Facilitate personnel entry and exit and stay residence policies, establish a special tax system with international competitiveness, and establish regulatory standards and norms that are in line with international standards.
\"Currently, China is shifting from the opening of commodities and factors to the institutional opening of rules and other rules, with more emphasis on institutional and structural arrangements.\" Chi Fulin, President of China (Hainan) Reform and Development Research Institute, told the Economic Reference News The reporter said that to promote institutional opening up, it is necessary to create a market-oriented, rule-of-law, and international business environment as an important guide for government governance reform.
Chi Fulin pointed out that in recent years, China's business environment has improved significantly and its global ranking has risen significantly. However, there are still some gaps between some indicators in our country and the international advanced level. To promote institutional opening-up, it is necessary to benchmark the international advanced level in the business environment and further fill the shortcomings. For example, focusing on tax reduction and fee reduction to reduce institutional transaction costs, further reduce or cancel various fees; fully implement the enterprise's independent registration system and simple cancellation system, cancel the enterprise's general investment project filing system, and fully implement \"up to one run\" \".
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