BEIJING: China will improve the level of services for foreign investment, said Ling Ji, vice minister of China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), at a press conference on Thursday.
Attracting more high-quality foreign direct investment into the country’s listed companies is one of the priorities for 2025, Ling said.
Ling highlighted that it is necessary to optimize relevant regulations for foreign investment in establishing investment companies, the rules and procedures for foreign mergers and acquisitions, and support foreign enterprises to participate in the country’s new industrialization process.
By the end of 2023, China was home to a total of 465,000 foreign-funded enterprises, an increase of 46,000 since 2019, and in 2024, 59,000 foreign-funded enterprises were established across the country, marking a year-on-year growth of 9.9 percent, said Zhu Bing, director of the Department of Foreign Investment Administration at MOFCOM, at the press conference.
Zhu noted that despite some multinational corporations have retreated from China, the overall number of foreign enterprises in the country continues to grow.
Meanwhile, nearly 1.24 million foreign-funded enterprises had been established in China as of 2024, with the actual use of foreign capital reaching 20.6 trillion yuan ($2.83 trillion), said Ling.
By actively attracting and utilizing foreign investment, China has advanced technologies and management experience, promoted economic development in various regions, increased tax revenue, provided a large number of jobs, improved people’s living standards, and enriched the supply of goods and services, Ling added.
