Half a year after the "24 Foreign Investment Articles" were released, more than 60% of the policy measures have been implemented or have made positive progress; recently, the State Council executive meeting studied work related to further optimizing the business environment; the foreign-invested enterprise roundtable system proposed targeted benefits for enterprises Measures to lay a solid foundation, this year will be held monthly... 

■ Reporter Bai Shujie

On February 5, the State Council Information Office held a regular briefing on the State Council’s policy on “creating a market-oriented, legal-based, and international first-class business environment.” Zhu Bing, director of the Department of Foreign Investment Management of the Ministry of Commerce, said at the briefing that the Chinese government attaches great importance to stabilizing foreign investment and has always focused on attracting foreign investment by building a market-oriented, legal and international first-class business environment. "In August 2023, The State Council issued the "Opinions on Further Optimizing the Foreign Investment Environment and Increasing Attraction of Foreign Investment." It has been half a year since the policy was released, and more than 60% of the policy measures have been implemented or have made positive progress. The vast majority of foreign-funded enterprises Overall good review.”

Recently, the State Council held an executive meeting to study work related to further optimizing the business environment. In addition, the Ministry of Commerce has also upgraded and established a roundtable meeting system for foreign-funded enterprises, and held a number of roundtable meetings for foreign-funded enterprises and achieved good results.

Zhu Bing said that the Ministry of Commerce will continue to promote various measures to accelerate the implementation and effectiveness, promptly report the progress of government procurement, standard setting, investment facilitation and other aspects that are generally concerned by foreign-invested enterprises, and further strengthen the assessment of the implementation of the "24 Foreign Investment Articles" Work. At the same time, this year we will continue to give full play to the role of the foreign-invested enterprise roundtable system, and hold a foreign-invested enterprise roundtable every month to fully listen to the opinions and suggestions of enterprises.

“24 Articles on Foreign Investment”

Solid results have been achieved

Xiao Weiming, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the meeting that in the past year, various departments of the State Council have conscientiously implemented the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, accelerated reforms in key areas and key links, and promoted the issuance of a number of feasible, pragmatic and effective policies. Policy measures have achieved significant results in optimizing the business environment, and marketization, legalization, internationalization and government service levels have been further improved, providing strong support for promoting the overall economic recovery.

In August 2023, the Ministry of Commerce reported to the State Council and issued the "Opinions on Further Optimizing the Foreign Investment Environment and Increasing Attraction of Foreign Investment", known as the "24 Foreign Investment Articles", which focused on responding to the concerns and demands of foreign-invested enterprises on China's investment environment. Propose a number of highly targeted policy measures.

Zhu Bing introduced that it has been half a year since the "24 Foreign Investment Regulations" were released, and all departments and localities are working hard to promote the implementation of various policies and measures according to their division of responsibilities. Not long ago, the Ministry of Commerce, together with relevant departments, conducted a phased review and evaluation of the implementation of the "24 Articles on Foreign Investment" and listened to the evaluations of foreign-invested enterprises in the form of questionnaire surveys and symposiums. "Overall, more than 60% of policy measures have been implemented or have made positive progress, and the vast majority of foreign-funded enterprises have a good overall evaluation."

Specifically, 10 of the 59 measures in the "24 Foreign Investment Measures" have been completed. For example, the Cyberspace Administration of China issued a document specifying “effectively safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises on the Internet” as a key task for reporting online infringement information. It also opened an online reporting area and announced the 12377 reporting hotline. The Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation issued an announcement to extend the implementation period of the tax exemption policy for foreign individual subsidies and the tax refund policy for the purchase of domestic equipment by foreign-funded R&D institutions until the end of December 2027.

There are 28 items that have made phased progress, including policy documents that have been drafted and are in the process of being promulgated, relevant work has been carried out or work arrangements have been carried out in accordance with the requirements of policy initiatives, etc. For example, the "Regulations on Regulating and Promoting Cross-border Data Flows" formulated by the Central Cyberspace Administration of China are being studied and improved and are being prepared for promulgation. The Ministry of Finance is working hard to formulate standards for "produced in China" for government procurement products.

There are 21 items that are being continuously promoted, including some long-term continuous work, such as the State Intellectual Property Office guiding and supporting relevant localities to set up intellectual property service guarantee workstations during the exhibition, and doing a good job in patent priority review and acceptance, intellectual property maintenance, comprehensive consultation, etc. Intellectual property service guarantee work.

Meng Wei, director of the Law and Regulations Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that in the next step, in response to issues such as market access and industrial cooperation that foreign-invested enterprises are concerned about, we will promote the introduction of greater action plans to attract and utilize foreign investment, and continue to reasonably reduce the negative list for foreign investment access. , comprehensively cancel restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector, promote international industrial investment cooperation, and continue to enhance China’s attractiveness to global factor resources.

continue to play

The role of the roundtable system for foreign-invested enterprises

The recently held executive meeting of the State Council required that more attention be paid to responding to the outstanding concerns of business entities. Zhu Bing said that in accordance with the deployment of the State Council, the Ministry of Commerce relied on the foreign trade and foreign investment coordination service mechanism to upgrade and establish a roundtable system for foreign-funded enterprises in July 2023. Since the establishment of this system, it has received widespread attention and full recognition from foreign-funded enterprises and has achieved good results. Effectiveness.

"In 2023, the Ministry of Commerce held 15 roundtable meetings, with more than 400 foreign-funded enterprises and foreign business associations participating. More than 140 roundtables were also held in various places, with more than 2,200 foreign-funded enterprises and foreign business associations participating. September 2023 In March, the Ministry of Commerce launched the 'Foreign-funded Enterprise Problem Complaints Collection and Management System' and made every effort to create an online roundtable to provide more small and medium-sized foreign-funded enterprises with a convenient channel to report problems, which was widely welcomed by enterprises." Zhu Bing said that these measures have created It provides more exchange opportunities and stabilizes foreign investment confidence in China.  

The roundtable meeting does not set any rules and regulations, and encourages foreign-funded enterprises to speak freely, tell the truth, ask more difficult questions, and present more specific cases. Through in-depth exchanges with enterprises, the Ministry of Commerce fully listened to the difficult problems of enterprises and collected the core demands and common issues of many foreign-funded enterprises, laying a solid foundation for research and proposing targeted measures to benefit enterprises.

The reporter learned that by convening a roundtable meeting, the Ministry of Commerce quickly addressed a number of key issues that foreign-funded enterprises were highly concerned about. Some of the issues were resolved at the meeting. For outstanding difficulties and common problems that were difficult to solve at the meeting, the Ministry of Commerce established Work ledger, give full play to the role of the foreign trade and foreign investment coordination service mechanism, conduct in-depth research with relevant departments and localities, improve and improve policies and regulations that a number of foreign-funded enterprises attach great importance to, promote a number of open areas that foreign-funded enterprises attach great importance to, and explain a number of Foreign-funded enterprises have concerns about sensitive issues and constantly optimize the business environment.

On January 12, the Ministry of Commerce held a roundtable meeting for Belgian enterprises, which was also the first roundtable meeting for foreign-invested enterprises in 2024.

Regarding this year’s work arrangements, Zhu Bing revealed that the Ministry of Commerce will continue to play the role of the foreign-funded enterprise roundtable system and hold a foreign-funded enterprise roundtable every month to fully listen to the opinions and suggestions of enterprises. We will focus on the core demands and common outstanding issues of foreign-invested enterprises and carefully set the theme of the meeting; rely on the foreign trade and foreign investment coordination service mechanism to continue to promote the resolution of difficult problems of enterprises and strive to improve the effectiveness of the meeting.

"We will make good use of the communication platform established by the roundtable, actively listen to the opinions and suggestions of enterprises on some opening-up measures and policy formulation, and understand international experience and practices to help us better promote the work of stabilizing foreign investment. We will also continue to listen to the opinions and suggestions of foreign-funded enterprises on the roundtable We will continue to provide opinions and suggestions on the theme, form, scope and other aspects of the meeting to continuously improve the pertinence and effectiveness of the meeting, provide better services to foreign-funded enterprises, further enhance mutual trust between government and enterprises, and build consensus." Zhu Bing said.