CCTV News: On February 20, the State Council Information Office held a regular briefing on the State Council’s policies.

At the press conference, a reporter asked, and we noticed that the Action Plan proposed to revise and expand the Catalogue of Industry Encouraging Foreign Investment, and to study and formulate policies to encourage domestic reinvestment of foreign-invested enterprises. What are the considerations of the NDRC for these two policies?

China Central Committee, head of the Department of Utilization of Foreign Investment and Overseas Investment of the National Development and Reform Commission, responded that foreign investment is an important force in participating in Chinese-style modernization construction and promoting the common prosperity and development of China's economy and the world economy. Since last year, the National Development and Reform Commission has continued to carry out special actions to serve foreign-invested enterprises. During the survey, we learned that foreign-invested enterprises are very concerned about reinvestment and the "Catalogue of Industries Encouraging Foreign Investment" and have also given us many good suggestions. The Action Plan also clearly states that these two support measures should be promoted. Vice Minister Ling Ji just introduced that the measures of this Action Plan must be implemented in principle within 2025. This is a positive response to foreign-funded enterprises, and it once again demonstrates the positive attitude of the Chinese government to welcome multinational companies to invest in long-term and continue to cultivate the Chinese market.

About revision and expanding the "Catalogue of Industries Encouraging Foreign Investment". At the end of last year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce had publicly released a draft for soliciting opinions, with about 1,700 items for soliciting opinions, an increase of about 200 items from the 2022 edition. During the process of soliciting opinions, we have also received more than 140 valuable suggestions from all walks of life, covering multiple fields such as equipment manufacturing, key component production, scientific and technological services, and productive services. At present, we are modifying and improving it based on feedback from all parties, and will issue the 2025 version of the encouragement catalog as soon as possible according to the procedures. The new catalog will focus on adding items in the fields of advanced manufacturing, modern services, high-tech, energy conservation and environmental protection, and encourage more foreign investment to be invested in the central and western regions and northeastern regions.

Research and introduce policies to encourage domestic reinvestment of foreign-invested enterprises. Based on the preliminary investigation, the National Development and Reform Commission has jointly launched the formulation of this policy with relevant departments. Our preliminary consideration is: in terms of improving the convenience of domestic reinvestment of foreign-invest enterprises, we plan to further open up reinvestment channels for enterprises from the perspectives of simplifying the procedures for handling related matters, improving financial services, optimizing project filing management, etc.; in terms of strengthening domestic reinvestment service guarantees for foreign-invest enterprises, we plan to coordinate support for qualified reinvestment projects from the perspectives of optimizing the allocation of various production factors, strengthening the support of work teams for major foreign-investment projects, and strengthening full-process services for projects.

In the next step, we will work with the Ministry of Commerce, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the State Administration for Foreign Exchange, etc. to go to Shanghai to exchange and communicate with relevant enterprises on these two policies. We also hope that through various forms such as field research and symposium, we can listen to suggestions from all parties and promote the introduction of relevant policies and measures as soon as possible. We will work with relevant departments to provide service guarantees for foreign-funded enterprises to invest and operate in China, and provide greater investment opportunities and investment space for multinational companies. At the same time, we sincerely welcome more foreign-invested enterprises to take root in the Chinese market for a long time, continue to increase capital and expand production, develop and grow in China, fully enjoy the dividends of foreign investment promotion policy, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.