Creating a Better Business Environment for Foreign Investment —— Review of the 16th Meeting of the Central Leading Group for Finance and Economics (Part III)

　　Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 6th　Title: Creating a Better Foreign Business Environment — — Review on the spirit of the 16th meeting of the Central Financial and Economic Leading Group (Ⅲ)

　　Xinhua News Agency reporters Liu Hongxia and Li Jinfeng

　　The 16th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Finance and Economics emphasized that it is necessary to improve the investment and market environment, speed up the pace of opening to the outside world, reduce the operating cost of the market, create a stable, fair, transparent and predictable business environment, speed up the construction of a new open economic system, and promote the sustained and healthy development of China’s economy.

　　China’s continuous optimization of foreign business environment not only shows the responsibility of a responsible big country to actively fulfill its commitments, but also is an inherent requirement to promote supply-side structural reform and realize a higher-level economic development.

　　Optimizing the business environment keeps pace.

　　"The project was finalized in March, and the land use bidding and auction procedures were completed in July. The efficiency of government approval far exceeded expectations." It was Huang Yi, the general manager of Wuhan Branch in China District of German Webasto Group who said this.

　　In fact, as early as 14 years ago, Webster had "settled" in Wuhan. In March this year, the global automobile sunroof manufacturing giant joined hands with Wuhan caidian district and invested 200 million yuan to build the first phase of the production base with an annual output of 1 million sets of automobile skylights. At present, Webasto has 10 production bases in China.

　　"The government’s support and work efficiency enable enterprises to start construction as planned, release new production capacity as soon as possible and eliminate worries." Huang Yi said that Webster is very optimistic about China’s market prospects and is confident in increasing investment in China.

　　As an important part of realizing the rise of Central China, Wuhan has optimized the business environment of international advanced cities this year, increased foreign investment, and focused on introducing high-end manufacturing, modern logistics and high-end life service industries. In the first half of the year, Wuhan actually utilized 5.007 billion US dollars of foreign capital, up 13.1% year-on-year.

　　Wuhan is just a microcosm. At the press conference on China’s foreign trade and economic cooperation in the first half of the year held by the State Council on July 31, Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming said that from January to June this year, the scale of China’s utilization of foreign capital was basically stable, and the industrial structure of foreign capital showed positive changes. The utilization of foreign capital in the central region got rid of the downturn in recent years and increased by 42.1%.

　　Behind the steady flow of foreign capital, it reflects China’s unremitting efforts to optimize the business environment by stepping on the stone and leaving a seal:

　　— — At the beginning of this year, the State Council issued the "Notice on Several Measures for Expanding Opening to the Outside World and Actively Utilizing Foreign Capital", proposing 20 high-gold measures to promote the introduction of foreign capital;

　　— — In April, seven free trade pilot zones in Liaoning, Zhejiang, Henan, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan and Shaanxi opened for business, and a total of 11 free trade pilot zones formed an open pattern of all-round institutional innovation in East, West and China;

　　— — In June, the new version of the negative list of foreign investment in the Pilot Free Trade Zone was released, reducing 27 restrictive measures compared with the previous version. In the new Catalogue for the Guidance of Foreign Investment Industries issued by the Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission, the restrictive measures are reduced from 93 to 30;

　　— — In July, from the meeting of the Central Leading Group for Finance and Economics, to Politburo meeting of the Chinese Communist Party, and then to the the State Council executive meeting, many high-level meetings made arrangements for opening up in a short period of time, and foreign investment benefits kept emerging.

　　… …

　　Optimistic about China’s development prospects.

　　"The people of China welcome people from all countries to take the &lsquo developed by China; Express ’ ‘ Hitchhiking ’ " "China will open wider to the outside world" and "We must adhere to the general direction of building an open world economy" … … China sincerely extended his arms, and the world warmly embraced him.

　　In Wujiang, Jiangsu, a small excavator factory has sprung up. This workshop belongs to the global construction machinery giant, American Caterpillar Company.

　　Earlier this year, Du Leqian, president of Caterpillar Group, told reporters in Beijing that he would invest in the expansion of the company’s small excavator factory in Wujiang. "We have always been optimistic about the business environment in China. This is true."

　　Not long ago, Wal-Mart announced that it plans to build more than 40 stores and a fresh food cold chain logistics distribution center in Guangdong Province in the next five years. Scott Price, Wal-Mart’s global executive vice president and chief executive officer of the international department, told reporters that 2016 was the best year for Wal-Mart in the China market in the past five years. "We believe that increasing investment and procurement is a very correct business decision.".

　　According to the report on the global business environment released by the World Bank, the convenience of doing business in China has jumped 18 places in the world in the past three years, with an average annual leap of 6 places. The 2017 World Competitiveness Report of Lausanne School of Management also shows that China scored significantly in economic performance, government efficiency and business efficiency.

　　The efforts to clear the obstacles of reform are not diminished.

　　To build a stable, fair, transparent and predictable business environment, the central government needs to "lead the line" and departments and localities need to "embroider flowers".

　　The 16th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Finance and Economics emphasized that it is necessary to speed up the unification of domestic and foreign laws and regulations and formulate new basic laws on foreign investment. It is necessary to clean up laws, regulations, rules and policy documents involving foreign investment, and all laws, regulations or clauses that are inconsistent with the general direction and principles of the country’s opening up to the outside world should be abolished or revised within a time limit. Foreign-funded enterprises shall operate in accordance with the company law after admission, and shall be equal in law, consistent in policy and subject to national treatment.

　　The meeting stressed that it is necessary to clean up and reduce all kinds of inspections and fines, establish a list system of enterprise-related charges, and strictly prohibit unauthorized charges, over-standard charges, self-designed charges, and repeated charges, so as to prevent intermediaries from using government influence to charge illegally, and industry associations may not force enterprises to join or charge illegally.

　　Wang Jun, director of the Information Department of China International Economic Exchange Center, said that it should be soberly recognized that some cadres in some departments and places have not adapted to, grasped and led the current changed international and domestic trends, and "stretched their hands too long and managed too much". The reform of the business environment must be unswervingly promoted when it comes to gnawing hard bones.

　　The the State Council executive meeting held on July 28th made a series of arrangements for increasing the introduction of foreign capital and creating a higher level of opening-up environment: implementing the pre-entry national treatment plus negative list management system that has been tried out in the Pilot Free Trade Zone throughout the country; If the profits distributed by foreign investors from resident enterprises in China are directly invested in encouraged investment projects, deferred tax payment will be implemented and withholding income tax will not be levied temporarily; Study and introduce measures to cancel or liberalize the restrictions on foreign investment in some areas of manufacturing and service industries; Expand the investment management authority of state-level development zones, and give priority to the protection of construction land for projects that use foreign capital in line with the plan; We will simplify the work permit for foreign talents in China by means of "notification+commitment" throughout the country … …

　　China has achieved remarkable results in optimizing the business environment for foreign investors. China is determined to be unwavering, and China will not stop.