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china.com, september 19 (reporter zhao xiaowen) the third plenary session of the 20th cpc central committee emphasized the need to improve the high-level opening-up system and mechanism and reasonably reduce the negative list for foreign investment access. recently, the national development and reform commission and the ministry of commerce issued the "special administrative measures for foreign investment access (negative list) (2024 edition)".

on september 19, jin xiandong, director of the policy research office and spokesperson of the national development and reform commission, said at a press conference that from a global perspective, china has always been an important investment destination for multinational corporations. the annual scale of foreign investment has remained the largest among developing countries for more than 30 consecutive years, and the areas open to foreign investment are also continuously expanding. in recent years, china has revised the negative list for foreign investment access many times and introduced a series of major opening measures in the fields of manufacturing, mining, agriculture, and finance. the restrictive measures on the national negative list for foreign investment access have been reduced from 93 in the 2017 version to 31 in the 2021 version, providing broad space for the development of foreign-funded enterprises.

jin xiandong pointed out that compared with the 2021 version, the recently released 2024 version of the national negative list for foreign investment access deleted the remaining two restrictive measures in the manufacturing sector, and also emphasized that "publication printing must be controlled by the chinese side" and "investment in the application of processing technologies such as steaming, frying, roasting, and calcining of chinese herbal medicines and the production of confidential prescription products of chinese patent medicines is prohibited." so far, the restrictive measures on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector have been completely lifted, which fully demonstrates china's positive willingness to expand mutual benefit and win-win results and its clear attitude of supporting economic globalization.

"in the next step, the national development and reform commission will work with relevant departments and localities to implement the pre-entry national treatment plus negative list management system in depth, implement the 2024 version of the national negative list for foreign investment access, and ensure that new opening measures are implemented in a timely manner. for areas outside the negative list, we will grant foreign-invested enterprises national treatment in accordance with the principle of consistency between domestic and foreign investment," said jin xiandong.

the national development and reform commission will intensify efforts to improve the high-level opening-up system and mechanism, improve the policy and rule system, and promote the high-quality development of foreign investment. in terms of policy, we will implement the action plan to attract and utilize foreign investment with greater efforts, accelerate the implementation of the 2024 version of the national negative list for foreign investment access, and solve the problems of blockages, difficulties and card points faced by foreign investors in china in a targeted manner, and further improve the level of foreign investment liberalization and facilitation. at the same time, we will study the expansion of the national catalog of industries encouraged for foreign investment.

in terms of services, we will make good use of the direct contact mechanism for foreign-invested enterprises, optimize the service guarantee for foreign-invested enterprises, respond to concerns, solve demands, and provide services in a timely manner. we will give full play to the role of the special working group for major foreign-invested projects, coordinate and solve the problems of land use, sea use, environmental impact assessment, energy consumption, etc. at the national level involved in the implementation of the projects, and promote the accelerated implementation of the first seven batches of major foreign-invested projects. at the same time, we will launch a new batch of landmark major foreign-invested projects with traction and driving effects in a timely manner to further consolidate the basic plate of foreign investment.

jin xiandong said that the scope of application of the 144-hour transit visa-free policy has been expanded to 37 ports, and the policy of facilitating the travel of tourists from various countries, especially international businessmen, has been implemented effectively. "we welcome new and old friends from all countries to visit china, look for investment opportunities, and share china's development opportunities."

editor: peng yao