On March 19, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Action Plan for Solidly Promoting High-level Opening to the Outside World and Greater Efforts to Attract and Utilize Foreign Investment", which pointed out that we should improve the control of total energy consumption and intensity, focus on controlling fossil energy consumption, and implement raw material energy and non-fossil energy consumption. Energy consumption is not included in policies such as total energy consumption and intensity control, and the reasonable energy use needs of foreign-funded projects are guaranteed equally. Accelerate the promotion of green certificate transactions and cross-provincial green power transactions to better meet the green power needs of foreign-invested enterprises.

following is the original text

Report of the General Office of the State Council on the issuance of "Solid Progress"

High-level opening up to the outside world will attract greater efforts and

Action Plan for the Utilization of Foreign Investment

Guo Ban Fa [2024] No. 9

People's governments of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, ministries and commissions of the State Council, and agencies directly under the State Council:

The "Action Plan for Solidly Promoting High-level Opening to the Outside World and Making Greater Efforts to Attract and Utilize Foreign Investment" has been approved by the State Council and is now issued to you. Please implement it carefully.

general office of the State Council

February 28, 2024

(This document is publicly released)

Solidly promote high-level opening up to the outside world

Action plan for greater efforts to attract and utilize foreign investment

Foreign investment is an important force in participating in Chinese-style modernization and promoting the common prosperity and development of the Chinese economy and the world economy. To solidly promote high-level opening up to the outside world and make greater efforts to attract and utilize foreign investment, we must adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, implement the new development concept completely, accurately and comprehensively, better coordinate the domestic and international situations, and create a market-oriented, legal and international first-class business environment, give full play to China's ultra-large-scale market advantages, consolidate foreign investment's confidence in developing in China, and improve the quality and level of trade and investment cooperation. In order to implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, the following action plan is now formulated.

1. Expand market access and improve the level of foreign investment liberalization

(1) Reasonably reduce the negative list for foreign investment access. Improve the pre-entry national treatment plus negative list management system for foreign investment, comprehensively cancel restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector, and continue to promote the expansion of opening up in telecommunications, medical and other fields.

(2) Carry out pilot projects to relax access for foreign investment in the field of scientific and technological innovation. Free trade pilot zones such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong are allowed to select a number of qualified foreign-invested enterprises to conduct pilot expansion in the fields of gene diagnosis and treatment technology development and application. Support opening measures in areas such as information services (limited to application stores) to better implement and achieve results in pilot free trade zones.

(3) Expand access to foreign financial institutions in the field of banking and insurance. On the premise of ensuring safety, efficiency and stability, support qualified foreign-funded institutions to carry out bank card clearing business in accordance with the law. Deepen the opening up of commercial pension insurance, health insurance and other industries, and support qualified overseas professional insurance institutions to invest and establish or participate in insurance institutions in China.

(4) Expand the business scope of foreign financial institutions participating in the domestic bond market. Optimize relevant procedures for foreign financial institutions to participate in the domestic capital market and further facilitate foreign financial institutions to participate in the Chinese bond market. Support qualified foreign-funded financial institutions to participate in domestic bond underwriting in accordance with regulations. Study and steadily promote more qualified foreign banks to participate in the treasury bond futures trading pilot.

(5) In-depth implementation of the domestic investment pilot for qualified overseas limited partners. Expand the scope of qualified overseas limited partners pilot, standardize the requirements for qualified overseas limited partners to manage enterprises and funds in terms of registered capital, shareholders, etc., and broaden the scope of funds that can invest. Improve the management measures for private investment fund service business, encourage foreign investors to invest in establishing private equity funds and carry out various investment activities in accordance with the law.

2. Increase policy efforts to enhance the attractiveness of foreign investment

(6) Expand the catalog of industries encouraged for foreign investment and the list of foreign-funded projects. The national catalog of industries encouraged for foreign investment has increased support for advanced manufacturing, high-tech, energy conservation and environmental protection, and the catalog of advantageous industries for foreign investment in the central and western regions has increased support for basic manufacturing, applicable technologies, and people's livelihood consumption. Actively support the inclusion of foreign-funded projects in integrated circuits, biomedicine, high-end equipment and other fields in the list of major and key foreign-funded projects, and allow them to enjoy corresponding support policies.

(7) Implement tax support policies. Projects invested by foreign-invested enterprises in China that meet the conditions such as the catalog of industries encouraged for foreign investment may enjoy the tariff exemption policy for imported equipment for own use in accordance with regulations. Implement preferential tax policies related to foreign investors investing in financial markets such as the Chinese bond market.

(8) Increase financial support. Financial institutions are encouraged to provide high-quality financial services and financing support for qualified foreign-funded projects in accordance with market-oriented principles. Support qualified foreign-invested enterprises to issue RMB bonds in China for financing and use them for domestic investment projects. Promote the implementation of cross-border trade and investment foreign exchange management facilitation policies, and continue to improve the convenience of foreign exchange business for foreign-invested enterprises.

(9) Strengthen energy use guarantees. Improve the control of total energy consumption and intensity, focus on controlling fossil energy consumption, implement policies such as excluding raw material energy and non-fossil energy consumption from total energy consumption and intensity control, and ensure the reasonable energy use needs of foreign-funded projects equally. Accelerate the promotion of green certificate transactions and cross-provincial green power transactions to better meet the green power needs of foreign-invested enterprises.

(10) Support the central, western and northeastern regions to undertake industrial transfers. Encourage the central, western and northeastern regions to give full play to local comparative advantages and formulate policies and measures to reduce the costs of land, energy, employment, logistics, etc. of manufacturing enterprises according to local conditions. Plan and integrate key development zones in the central, western and northeastern regions, pair up with the eastern region to carry out foreign-invested industrial transfer cooperation, and establish and improve mechanisms and implementation rules for project promotion, cadre exchanges, and revenue sharing.

3. Optimize a level competition environment and provide good services to foreign-invested enterprises

(11) Clean up behaviors and policies and measures that violate fair competition. Timely handle discriminatory behaviors against foreign-invested enterprises in government procurement, bidding, qualification licensing, standard formulation, and subsidy enjoyment reported by business entities, and notify responsible entities and rectify within a time limit. Accelerate the formulation and promulgation of standards for government procurement of domestically manufactured products, and treat products that meet the standards produced by domestic and foreign-funded enterprises equally and equally in government procurement activities. Comprehensively clean up policies and measures that hinder the unified market and fair competition.

(12) Improve the bidding system. Accelerate the revision of the Bidding Law. Organize and carry out special treatment of outstanding issues in the field of bidding, focus on correcting problems that a group of business entities have strongly reported, and eliminate unreasonable restrictions that restrict enterprises of all types of ownership from participating in bidding on an equal footing. Formulate fair competition review rules in the field of bidding, strengthen rigid constraints on fair competition review, and avoid issuing policy documents that exclude and restrict fair competition.

(13) Formulation and revision of fair participation standards. Support foreign-invested enterprises to participate in standardization technical committees for advanced manufacturing, engineering materials, information and communications or relevant standardization organizations under the same conditions, and equally participate in the formulation and revision of standards in accordance with the law. Timely disclose national standard information to improve the transparency and openness of standardization work.

(14) Improve the scientific level of administrative law enforcement. Strictly implement the administrative law enforcement publicity system, strictly implement the list of administrative inspection items, resolutely avoid duplicate inspections, promptly correct irregular administrative law enforcement behaviors, and gradually implement off-site supervision with remote supervision, early warning and prevention as the main features.

(15) Continue to build the "Invest in China" brand. Relying on important exhibition platforms, we will carry out key investment promotion activities of "Invest in China" to comprehensively demonstrate China's high-quality business environment and investment opportunities to foreign investors. Establish and improve working mechanisms, give full play to the role of foreign embassies and consulates as business institutions, support local governments to combine "going global" and "inviting in", and carry out regular investment promotion work. Organize international industrial investment cooperation docking activities to promote more project negotiations and signing.

(16) Strengthen services for foreign-invested enterprises. Make good use of platforms such as the Roundtable of Foreign-funded Enterprises, deepen regular exchanges with foreign-invested enterprises, foreign chambers of commerce, and international organizations, respond to the concerns of all parties in a timely manner, and provide targeted service guarantees. Improve the cross-departmental coordination mechanism for complaints from foreign-invested enterprises at all levels, improve the direct contact system for foreign-invested enterprises, smooth communication channels, and promptly understand and promote the resolution of problems and reasonable demands reported by foreign-invested enterprises. Implement the foreign investment information reporting system, continue to promote departmental data sharing, and foreign-invested enterprises shall not be required to submit repeatedly the information that can be obtained through departmental information sharing.

4. Smooth the flow of innovation factors and promote innovation cooperation between domestic and foreign-funded enterprises

(17) Support the flow of data between foreign-invested enterprises and headquarters. Standardize cross-border data security management, organize and carry out data exit security assessments, standardize the filing of personal information exit standard contracts and other related work, and promote the safe and orderly cross-border flow of data such as R & D, production, and sales of foreign-invested enterprises. Formulate cross-border data transfer standards for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, rely on major cooperation platforms such as the Hengqin Guangdong-Macao Deep Cooperation Zone and the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone, establish a cross-border data flow mechanism for Hong Kong and Macao enterprises, and explore the establishment of cross-border data flow The "white list" system steadily promotes the convenient flow of data within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

(18) Facilitate the exchange of international business personnel. Provide convenience for foreign businessmen to apply for visas to China. For managers and technical personnel of foreign-invested enterprises, their accompanying spouses and minor children, the validity period of visas is relaxed to 2 years. Promote the accelerated recovery of the number of international flights in key aviation hubs such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

(19) Optimize the management of work and residence permits for foreigners in China. Optimize the process for processing work permits and work-type residence permits for foreigners in China, and adopt a "one-stop acceptance and parallel approval" approach to form a faster and more efficient approval mechanism. Strengthen departmental coordination to provide convenience for introduced foreign talents to work, suspend residence and permanently reside in China.

(20) Support cooperation and innovation among domestic and foreign institutions. Deeply implement the international science and technology cooperation plan under the new situation, and support foreign-invested enterprises, foreign-invested R & D institutions, and multinational companies established in China to participate equally in national science and technology plan projects such as national key R & D plans and major national science and technology projects.

5. Improve domestic regulations and better align with international high-standard economic and trade rules

(21) Strengthen intellectual property protection. Connect with international high-standard intellectual property rules, improve intellectual property protection regulations, accelerate the construction of a national intellectual property protection information platform, strengthen the construction of a trade secret protection system, and thoroughly implement the intellectual property administrative protection work plan. Focus on key areas and key links, and increase the protection of intellectual property rights of foreign-invested enterprises. Increase the investigation and punishment of intellectual property infringement cases, and resolutely crack down on and punish infringement of intellectual property rights of foreign-invested enterprises.

(22) Improve the rules for cross-border data flow. Scientifically define the scope of important data. Comprehensively and deeply participate in the World Trade Organization e-commerce negotiations and promote the accelerated construction of global digital trade rules. Explore piloting cross-border data flow with members of the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, accelerate the establishment of cross-border data flow cooperation mechanisms with major economic and trade partner countries and regions, and promote the construction of a multi-level global digital partnership network.

(23) Actively promote the negotiation and implementation of high-standard economic and trade agreements. Actively promote accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Digital Economy Partnership, proactively promote reforms in relevant domestic fields against relevant rules, regulations, management, and standards, and promote the inclusion of some high-standard economic and trade rules in the mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao Arrangements for Establishing Closer Economic and Trade Relations. Promote the negotiation and signing of free trade agreements with more countries and regions and expand the global network of high-standard free trade zones.

(24) Increase pilot efforts to align international high-standard economic and trade rules. Give full play to the leading role of the national comprehensive demonstration zone for expanding the opening up of the service industry, accurately meet the needs of industrial development, take the lead in building a service industry open system that is in line with international high-standard economic and trade rules, and conduct step-by-step docking in comprehensive pilot areas for expanding the opening up of the service industry in a timely manner. Support qualified free trade pilot zones and Hainan Free Trade Port based on national conditions, align with international high-standard economic and trade rules, and take the lead in exploring and implementing the World Trade Organization's negotiation results in domestic regulation of service trade, investment facilitation, digital trade and other fields.

All regions and departments must thoroughly implement the deployment requirements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on expanding high-level opening up to the outside world, take the initiative and pay close attention to implementation, and effectively enhance the sense of gain of foreign-invested enterprises. All regions must make greater efforts to create an environment and improve services, take practical issues of concern to foreign-invested enterprises as breakthroughs, be good at using innovative thinking to resolve contradictions and problems, and consolidate the confidence of foreign investment in the development of China. All departments must promptly refine and implement various tasks, formulate timetables and roadmap, and promote the implementation of policies and measures. The National Development and Reform Commission must work with relevant departments to strengthen guidance and coordination, track and evaluate the implementation effects of various policies, and summarize experience in a timely manner, replicate and promote it. Report major matters to the Party Central Committee and the State Council in a timely manner.