New measures to boost foreign investment with 2-year visa extensions
The General Office of the State Council has issued an action plan to steadily promote high-level opening up and make greater efforts to attract and utilize foreign investment.
The plan proposes 24 measures across five aspects — expanding market access, enhancing appeal to foreign investment, fostering a level playing field, facilitating the flow of innovation factors, and better aligning domestic rules with high-standard international economic and trade rules.
As outlined in the plan, to facilitate the mobility of international business personnel, measures are implemented to improve visa processing for foreign nationals. Specifically, for management personnel, technical staff, and their accompanying spouses and underage children of foreign-invested enterprises, the validity period of entry visas is extended to 2 years.
There is also a push to accelerate the resumption of international flights at major aviation hubs such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
Efforts should also be directed toward expanding access for foreign financial institutions to the banking and insurance sectors, as well as broadening the business scope of foreign financial institutions participating in the domestic bond market, as stated in the plan.
There is also a commitment to fully remove restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector and to further enhance openness in sectors such as telecommunications and healthcare.
Engage in further negotiations with additional countries and regions to sign free trade agreements, thus expanding the network of high-standard free trade zones accessible to the global market.
Encourage financial institutions to provide high-quality financial services and financing support to eligible foreign investmentl projects based on market principles.
Additionally, foreign-invested enterprises reinvesting in projects within China that meet the criteria are eligible to benefit from the tariff exemption policy on imported self-use equipment.
