Full transcript of policy briefing of the State Council on Jan 16, 2015

Wen Wei Po:

I'd like to raise a question on the opening up. What's the overall situation of attracting foreign investment in 2014? What measures has China taken to open wider to the outside world and improve the business environment? China is about to reach a balance in the outbound investment and inward FDI, what's your take on that?

Zhong Shan:

As I've previously said, foreign investment absorbed by China in the last year maintained a rapid pace of growth. I think two things matter most in foreign investment.

One is the optimization of the structure in last year's FDI. For instance, the proportion of the service trade in FDI has gone up.

The other one is that the decisions about where the FDI went to were more rational. In the past, foreign investment was concentrated on the eastern coastal areas. Now there is an obvious trend for foreign investment flowing into the central and western regions.

You mentioned policies regarding foreign investment. The opening-up policy is the basic State policy of our country. Attracting foreign investment is an important part of our nation's opening-up. We needed foreign investment when our country was poor and in the lower level of development. As for now, our scale of economy has increased, and the economy has developed, but we still think the opening-up should be expanded and foreign investment should be attracted.

The Chinese government will further expand the areas of opening-up, for instance, in the pilot Shanghai Free Trade Zone, we have started a foreign investment management model of pre-establishment national treatment. Meanwhile, we will further transform the government's role, improve policies on foreign investment, and make a better investment environment for foreign businessmen.

Regarding the question on how to interpret the fact that the outbound investment will surpass inward FDI, I think the transition is in accordance with the development of any nation, region, or enterprise. While absorbing the foreign investment, the Chinese government is also encouraging our enterprises to go abroad, so that Chinese companies can gain experience overseas and have more space to develop. At the same time, they create jobs and contribute to the taxation and the overall economic development in the countries they make investments in.

Thank you.