The Action Plan for Stabilizing Foreign Investment in 2025 was recently released, systematically responding to the concerns of foreign-funded enterprises in China. Among them, "increasing service guarantee efforts" is one of the four major tasks, which further boosts the confidence of foreign investment in China.

Optimize service guarantee

From facilitating exchanges between foreign business people, to broadening financing channels for foreign-funded enterprises, to incorporating more foreign-funded projects into the list of major key projects... This "Action Plan" provides a number of service guarantees for foreign-funded enterprises to enter and take root in China.

Since last year, my country has introduced a number of visa convenience measures to attract foreign personnel to come to China for conference and business activities. The Action Plan once again increased its investment in relevant policies. On the one hand, accelerate negotiations on mutual visa exemption agreements and optimize customs clearance policies such as port visas and transit visa exemptions; on the other hand, the "Guidelines for Work and Life of Foreign Business Personnel in China" will also be updated, covering more matters such as applying for communication cards, work permits, and payment of personal income tax.

The Action Plan proposes to hold targeted bank-enterprise docking activities to guide various funds to carry out equity investment cooperation with foreign-funded enterprises, which will help foreign capital better utilize high-quality funds in the Chinese market and accelerate technology research and development and production capacity layout. Tang Jun, president of the China region of Rhinecost Group in Germany, said that the company faced great financial pressure in the early stages of its development in China, and it was the financial support of local banks that enhanced the confidence in corporate development.

In implementing the "Action Plan", relevant departments will actively coordinate and resolve difficulties in the implementation and operation of major key foreign-funded projects. "It is expected that more important foreign-invested projects will be included in the list, and more service guarantees will be enjoyed in terms of factor acquisition, market access, financing convenience, personnel exchanges, etc.," said Ding Yue, a researcher at the World Industrial Research Institute of the China Institute of Electronic Information Industry Development.

Strengthening rights and interests protection

The Action Plan responds to issues of high concern to foreign capital such as government procurement and intellectual property protection, and will better protect the development rights and interests of foreign enterprises in China.

Cui Jingyi, vice president of Jianwei Software and general manager of China, said that the company is currently committed to increasing efforts in cooperation with original equipment manufacturers, strengthening cooperation with domestic equipment manufacturers, hardware suppliers and software developers, and accelerating the promotion and application of emerging cutting-edge technologies. The Action Plan further strengthens the protection of intellectual property rights of foreign companies, will better protect the development rights and interests of enterprises in China, and further deeply integrate with the local value chain.

"This plan allows us to better use China as the base to serve regional and global markets." Zhan Xu, director of Volvo Construction Equipment Investment (China) Co., Ltd., said that the Action Plan proposes to do a good job in certificates of origin under preferential trade agreements, which will help foreign-funded enterprises to enjoy tariff concessions for export goods to the agreement partners.

"The policy also focuses on the pain points of foreign-funded enterprises in the import process." Peng Bo, a researcher at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the "Action Plan" proposes that optimizing the inspection and supervision process of key equipment and reducing the inspection rate of AEO enterprises can significantly shorten the import customs clearance time and reduce the risk of production line shutdown caused by customs clearance delays.

Stimulate investment vitality

At present, around the "Action Plan", all localities and departments are promoting the issuance of several supporting policy documents to accelerate the optimization of the business environment for foreign companies in China. At the same time, special actions will be carried out to serve foreign-invested enterprises, visit foreign-invested enterprises "one-on-one" to timely understand and coordinate the resolution of difficulties and problems encountered by enterprises.

Yin Zheng, executive vice president of Schneider Electric and president of China and East Asia, said that China continues to expand its opening up, optimize the business environment, and increase investment support for foreign companies. These positive factors have prompted Schneider Electric to further deepen its development in China.

November, Volvo Construction Equipment's Shanghai factory in China completed a new assembly workshop construction project and added two new electrified product production lines, demonstrating its determination to deepen its cultivation in the Chinese market. Zhan Xu said: "We are full of confidence and expectations for the future, and believe that growing together with the Chinese market will bring greater development space for enterprises." Peng Bo said that in the next step, we must effectively improve the efficiency of policy implementation, strengthen collaborative cooperation among departments, ensure that policies take root at the grassroots level, and at the same time, we must strengthen policy publicity and interpretation to ensure that foreign-funded enterprises fully understand and enjoy policy dividends. I believe that through a series of policy combinations, China will further enhance its attractiveness to foreign capital, enhance the innovation motivation of foreign-invested enterprises in the Chinese market, and promote the optimization of the foreign capital structure.