China utilizes foreign capital through various channels and
forms, which fall into three major categories: 1) foreign loans,
including loans from foreign governments, international financial
organizations and foreign commercial banks, export credits, and
issuance of bonds overseas; 2) direct foreign investment, including
Chinese-foreign equity joint ventures, Chinese-foreign cooperative
joint ventures, wholly foreign-owned enterprises and
Chinese-foreign cooperative development projects; 3) other foreign
investments, including international leasing, compensation trade,
processing and assembly and issuing stocks overseas. From 1979 to
2004, foreign capital utilized by China in real terms totaled
US$745.4 billion, including US$562.1 billion of direct investments
by foreign businesses. In 2005, foreign investment remained strong;
and foreign capital utilized in real terms for the year totaled
US$63.8 billion, of which US$60.3 billion was foreign direct
investment.
Since the 1980s, China has put in a great amount of human,
material and financial resources to construct infrastructure
facilities to help create a favorable environment for foreign
investors to invest in China. The National People's Congress and
the State Council have promulgated more than 500 foreign-related
economic laws and regulations to provide legal and other guarantees
for foreign investors in China. At the end of 1997, China revised
and promulgated the Foreign Investment Industrial Guidance
Catalogue to encourage and support foreign business people to
invest in the comprehensive development of agriculture, energy,
communications, important raw and processed materials, new and high
technology, the comprehensive utilization of resources, and
environmental protection. In accordance with the rules of the WTO
and China's undertakings, China has basically completed the
rationalization and revision of foreign-related economic laws and
regulations. A foreign-investment law system has been formed, its
mainstay being the Law on Chinese-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures,
the Law on Chinese-Foreign Cooperative Joint Ventures, the Law on
Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprises and the related rules for the
implementation of these laws. By the end of 2005, foreign investors
from 192 countries and regions had invested in China, with a total
of 553,000 foreign-funded enterprises. Of the world's 500 top
multinational companies, over 450 have invested here. China has
been hailed by investors and the financial world as among the
countries with the best investment environment.
 |
