CHINA will take measures to improve the overall innovation capability in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, an official said yesterday.

An international sci-tech and innovation center will be built between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, covering an area of 3.89 square kilometers, as well as another one between Macao and Zhuhai, said He Lifeng, head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual legislative session in Beijing.

The measures also include the development of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Macao innovation and technology corridor as well as a Hong Kong innovation research institute to be set up by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to He.

Meanwhile, the Chinese economy will maintain steady progress with good momentum for growth and meet the government’s stated target, He said.

China has also made big strides in fostering a better business environment, as the country ranked 46 out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s newly released ranking list in 2018, He said. China ranked 78 for ease of doing business in 2017.

Also at the press conference, Ning Jizhe, deputy chief of the NDRC, said China will introduce more measures to attract foreign investment.

“National treatment will be implemented before and after the entry of foreign companies,”  he said.

Ning said NDRC is working with relevant departments and localities to abolish the separate entry restrictions on foreign investment in areas outside the negative list, and to ensure that the domestic and foreign standards for market access are consistent.

China promotes the fair treatment of foreign-funded enterprises in terms of government procurement, standard setting and industrial policing. In this sense, this is to apply the national treatment on foreign companies after their entry.

Despite the global environment of the slow recovery of cross-border investment, China’s use of foreign capital has reached a record high. The actual use of foreign direct investment in 2018 reached US$135 billion, an increase of 3 percent from 2017. The number of newly established foreign-invested enterprises has grown by nearly 70 percent.

China unveiled a shortened negative list for foreign investment in June last year, cutting the number of items from 63 to 48, and removing access restrictions in various sectors. The country will further reduce the negative list of foreign investment access and continue to develop pilot free trade zones.

China’s draft Foreign Investment Law (FIL) has been submitted for review at the ongoing annual session of the top legislature. FIL is expected to be passed this year, which includes improvement of the relevant provisions of the pre-entry national treatment plus negative list management system.

NDRC will also allow more foreign-owned enterprises to operate in agriculture, mining, manufacturing and service industries.

(SD-Xinhua)

(Xinhua)