China to open more sectors to foreign investors

China will open more sectors to foreign investors, encouraging investment in strategic emerging industries, the central government said Thursday. The National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued a new guideline to encourage more foreign investment into energy-saving and environmentally-friendly technologies, new-generation information technology, biotechnology, high-end equipment manufacturing, alternative energy, advanced materials, and alternative-fuel cars. The guideline will take effect on January 30, 2012. China will cut down restrictions on foreign investment by allowing them to invest in more sectors while lifting caps on the proportion of foreign capital in some sectors, according to the new guideline. Meanwhile, the government will continue to welcome foreign investors to high-end manufacturing and modern service industries. It also encourages them to invest in recycling industries. However, the government will withdraw support for foreign capital in auto manufacturing because of the need of the healthy development of domestic auto making. It will neither support foreign investment in the sectors of polycrystalline silicon and coal chemical due to concerns of industrial overcapacity and repeated construction, according to the guideline. In light of regional development gaps, the government will roll out a fine-tuned policy for the central and western regions in the future. In the first 11 months of this year, China attracted 103.77 billion U.S. dollars of foreign direct investment, up 13.15 percent from a year earlier. During the same period, the country approved the establishment of 25,086 foreign-invested companies, up 3.23 percent year on year.