New foreign-funded firms in China increase 26.5 pct y-o-y in Jan-Nov

China's business environment for foreign investors kept improving in 2017 on release of a string of incentive measures, attracting a faster growing amount of foreign investment in China.

In the first 11 months of 2017, the number of new foreign-funded companies in China hit 30,815, up 26.5 percent year on year. The country actually used 803.62 billion yuan in foreign direct investment (FDI), up 9.8 percent year on year, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC).

Since the beginning of 2017, China has released or revised a series of policies to promote high level of trade and investment convenience.

In January, China released the measures of expanding the opening-up and promoting use of the foreign investment to encourage foreign investments in high-end and smart manufacturing industries. It abolished restrictions of foreign access to the rail transit equipment manufacturing fields.

In February, the country revised the catalogue of foreign investment in advantage industries in China's central and western regions and added 139 foreign investment items.

In June, China revised the management measures of foreign investment access in pilot free trade zones (negative list) and the catalogue of the industry guide for foreign investment to further broaden scope of the foreign investment.

These measures strongly enhanced the foreign investors' confidence in China. In the first 11 months, the domestic manufacturing sector attracted FDI worth 207.76 billion yuan, up 0.2 percent year on year, accounting for 25.9 percent of the total FDI. During the period, FDI in the service sector climbed 13.5 percent year on year to 582.75 billion yuan, or 72.5 percent of the total.

In December, British Petroleum (BP) announced to invest 1.5 billion yuan to build a new lube oil blending plant, marking its largest single investment in such plant on a global scale.

BP is bullish about China's high-end lube oil market and also confident in China's investment environment. The new plant is another milestone of the company's investment in China and also represents its confidence on long-term investment in China, said Yang Xiaoping, president of BP China

According to the MOC, since the beginning of the year, the ministry has actively explored the "Internet + government service" and rolled out investment facilitation measures to attract the FDI.

The foreign investors pointed out that compared to the case-by-case approval system, the negative list management mode simplified and shortened procedures of establishment and change of foreign-funded enterprises.

While seeing the robust foreign investment, China has quickened the pace to promote industrial transformation and upgrading by using the foreign investment.

In the first 11 months, the high-tech industry attracted FDI worth 60.15 billion yuan, up 9.9 percent year on year and the high-tech service industry actually used 177.1 billion in FDI, up 100.9 percent year on year, according to the MOC.