According to a statement released on Saturday following a State
Council meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, the Chinese
government will create an environment for fair competition for
foreign firms.
"It's important part of pushing forward a new round of
high-level opening up," the statement said.
In the future, except for certain sensitive industries in which
access for foreign companies is restricted, foreign investments
would only require registration, rather than approval. The
statement did not offer details on how the new system would
work.
It also said the Chinese government would take further steps to
improve market entry for foreign companies.
The State Council’s statement comes at a time when the foreign
business community in China has become highly critical of the
current unbalanced access for foreign companies in China.
Last month, a top European business lobby warned China that it
risked a protectionist backlash unless it opened its markets
faster to foreign investment.
Progress on China's economic reforms has been "highly
disappointing", the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China
said in an annual paper, released as China prepared to host
leaders from the world's biggest economies at last month’s G20
summit in Hangzhou.
(Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu and Shu Zhang in Beijing;
Editing by Stephen Powell)
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