THE Ministry of Commerce is intensifying efforts to clean up the restrictive measures on foreign investments that are not specified on the revised negative lists, the ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry will help implement the new negative lists and facilitate foreign investments through measures including cutting administrative red tape and cleaning up regulations and rules that are not in line with the foreign investment law, said Tang Wenhong, an official with the Ministry of Commerce.

China rolled out the revised negative lists for foreign investment market access to further cut the number of sectors, fields and businesses that are off-limits for foreign investors.

The two lists, one for the piloted free trade zones (FTZ) and the other for the rest of the country, contain fewer access-limiting measures. Pilot FTZs now have 37 listed items for foreign investors, down from 45, while non-FTZ areas are required to implement 40 items instead of 48.

The country has seen a steady inflow of foreign investment this year as it further opens up its economy. Total foreign investment actually utilized in the first five months of the year went up 6.8 percent year on year, data from the ministry showed.

The government will also launch a sequence of measures to stabilize foreign trade, the Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday.

The country’s foreign trade maintained steady growth in the first five months of this year, with the imports and exports of goods climbing to 12.1 trillion yuan (US$1.76 trillion), up 4.1 percent year on year, according to the ministry.

Given the current global economic climate, stabilizing foreign trade is a crucial step toward the sustainable and healthy development of the national economy, said Chu Shijia, head of the comprehensive department of the ministry.

To further inject stability into foreign trade, the country will continue to implement policies to improve the business environment, including accelerating the negotiation on high-standard free trade agreements and regional free trade agreements with more countries, said Zhu Yong, deputy director of the department of foreign trade of the ministry.

Meanwhile, this year is expected to see more national bases for foreign trade transformation and upgrading, which aim to foster industrial clusters to facilitate enterprise innovation and development, according to Zhu.(SD-Xinhua)