China Releases 2025 Action Plan Aimed at Attracting Foreign Investment
Published 23 February 2025
Xia Yu
On 19 February 2025, the General Office of the State Council of China released the 2025 Action Plan for Stabilizing Foreign Investment (“2025 Plan”) formulated by the Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission. On 13 August 2023, the State Council of China issued the Opinions on Further Optimizing the Foreign Investment Environment and Intensifying Efforts to Attract Foreign Investment (“2023 Opinions”) to boost the then-sluggish foreign investment atmosphere. As a continuation of the 2023 Opinions, the 2025 Plan lists 20 specific measures from four aspects: orderly expansion of autonomous opening up, improving investment promotion, enhancing the effectiveness of open platforms, and increasing service guarantees.
The 20 specific measures proposed in the 2025 Plan include: 1) expanding pilot opening-up in areas such as telecommunications, medical care, and education; 2) implementing the requirements for the complete abolition of restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector; 3) optimizing the national comprehensive pilot demonstration for expanding the opening-up of the service industry; 4) promoting orderly opening-up in the biomedicine sector; 5) encouraging foreign investment in equity investment in China; 6) continuing to build the “Invest in China” brand; 7) increasing support for foreign-invested enterprises’ domestic reinvestment; 8) expanding the scope of industries that encourage foreign investment; 9) canceling restrictions on the use of domestic loans by foreign-invested companies; 10) encouraging multinational companies to invest in and establish investment companies; 11) facilitating foreign investors’ mergers and acquisitions in China; 12) increasing investment in key areas; 13) strengthening external publicity of economic policies and business environment; 14) deepening the reform of the development zone management system; 15) implementing the free trade pilot zone enhancement strategy; 16) promoting the implementation of major and key foreign investment projects; 17) establishing a government procurement of domestic product standards system; 18) broadening the financing channels for foreign-invested enterprises; 19) promoting the facilitation of personnel exchanges; and 20) improving the level of trade facilitation for foreign-invested enterprises.
To stabilize and attract foreign investment, the 2023 Opinions put forward 24 policy directions in six aspects such as improving the quality of foreign investment, ensuring national treatment for foreign-invested enterprises, continuously strengthening the protection of foreign investment, improving the level of investment and operation facilitation, increasing fiscal and tax support, and improving the promotion of foreign investment. Based on the policy guidance of the 2023 Opinions, the 2025 Plan provides further specific implementation guidance in optimizing the foreign investment environment, including expanding the scope of open pilot projects in telecommunications, biomedicine, and education.
In the field of telecommunications, the pilot areas will promote the opening of the value-added telecommunications sector and support foreign investment in biotechnology-related telecommunications services, such as cross-border data flow, cloud computing, and other emerging fields. The free trade pilot zone will further increase the testing of foreign investment access and promote the alignment of telecommunications rules and standards with international standards, such as the pilot of the whitelist system for data outbound security assessment, to facilitate the compliance flow of data of multinational companies.
In the field of biomedicine, the 2025 Plan requires pilot areas to accelerate the implementation of the pilot policy of opening up foreign-owned hospitals, promote the implementation of projects as soon as possible, and further expand the pilot of opening up the medical field in due course. Secondly, it stipulates that qualified foreign-funded enterprises will be allowed to participate in the pilot of segmented production of biological products. Thirdly, it encourages foreign-funded enterprises to cooperate with domestic medical institutions, introduce international advanced medical technologies and management models, and promote the improvement of medical service quality.
In terms of education, the 2025 Plan proposes to start the research and formulation of an opening plan in this field, and gradually promote a pilot. According to the Plan, the autonomous opening plan in education should focus on exploring areas such as culture and vocational education, and be announced in due time and implemented in steps. Considering the sensitivity of the field, the opening process will be accompanied by the coordination and improvement of relevant policies and regulatory systems, such as teacher qualification certification and course content compliance review. Foreign investment projects in this field may include the establishment or cooperation of vocational education institutions and international schools.
The 2025 Plan requires that all measures be implemented by the end of 2025 and that the demands of foreign enterprises be addressed through a nationwide “service and protection for foreign enterprises” campaign. In 2024, China had established 59,000 new foreign-invested enterprises. This is partly due to the promulgation of the 2023 Opinions. Thus, the 2025 Plan should further promote the improvement of the foreign investment environment.
The 20 specific measures proposed in the 2025 Plan include: 1) expanding pilot opening-up in areas such as telecommunications, medical care, and education; 2) implementing the requirements for the complete abolition of restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector; 3) optimizing the national comprehensive pilot demonstration for expanding the opening-up of the service industry; 4) promoting orderly opening-up in the biomedicine sector; 5) encouraging foreign investment in equity investment in China; 6) continuing to build the “Invest in China” brand; 7) increasing support for foreign-invested enterprises’ domestic reinvestment; 8) expanding the scope of industries that encourage foreign investment; 9) canceling restrictions on the use of domestic loans by foreign-invested companies; 10) encouraging multinational companies to invest in and establish investment companies; 11) facilitating foreign investors’ mergers and acquisitions in China; 12) increasing investment in key areas; 13) strengthening external publicity of economic policies and business environment; 14) deepening the reform of the development zone management system; 15) implementing the free trade pilot zone enhancement strategy; 16) promoting the implementation of major and key foreign investment projects; 17) establishing a government procurement of domestic product standards system; 18) broadening the financing channels for foreign-invested enterprises; 19) promoting the facilitation of personnel exchanges; and 20) improving the level of trade facilitation for foreign-invested enterprises.
To stabilize and attract foreign investment, the 2023 Opinions put forward 24 policy directions in six aspects such as improving the quality of foreign investment, ensuring national treatment for foreign-invested enterprises, continuously strengthening the protection of foreign investment, improving the level of investment and operation facilitation, increasing fiscal and tax support, and improving the promotion of foreign investment. Based on the policy guidance of the 2023 Opinions, the 2025 Plan provides further specific implementation guidance in optimizing the foreign investment environment, including expanding the scope of open pilot projects in telecommunications, biomedicine, and education.
In the field of telecommunications, the pilot areas will promote the opening of the value-added telecommunications sector and support foreign investment in biotechnology-related telecommunications services, such as cross-border data flow, cloud computing, and other emerging fields. The free trade pilot zone will further increase the testing of foreign investment access and promote the alignment of telecommunications rules and standards with international standards, such as the pilot of the whitelist system for data outbound security assessment, to facilitate the compliance flow of data of multinational companies.
In the field of biomedicine, the 2025 Plan requires pilot areas to accelerate the implementation of the pilot policy of opening up foreign-owned hospitals, promote the implementation of projects as soon as possible, and further expand the pilot of opening up the medical field in due course. Secondly, it stipulates that qualified foreign-funded enterprises will be allowed to participate in the pilot of segmented production of biological products. Thirdly, it encourages foreign-funded enterprises to cooperate with domestic medical institutions, introduce international advanced medical technologies and management models, and promote the improvement of medical service quality.
In terms of education, the 2025 Plan proposes to start the research and formulation of an opening plan in this field, and gradually promote a pilot. According to the Plan, the autonomous opening plan in education should focus on exploring areas such as culture and vocational education, and be announced in due time and implemented in steps. Considering the sensitivity of the field, the opening process will be accompanied by the coordination and improvement of relevant policies and regulatory systems, such as teacher qualification certification and course content compliance review. Foreign investment projects in this field may include the establishment or cooperation of vocational education institutions and international schools.
The 2025 Plan requires that all measures be implemented by the end of 2025 and that the demands of foreign enterprises be addressed through a nationwide “service and protection for foreign enterprises” campaign. In 2024, China had established 59,000 new foreign-invested enterprises. This is partly due to the promulgation of the 2023 Opinions. Thus, the 2025 Plan should further promote the improvement of the foreign investment environment.