China on Feb. 19 issued an action plan to stabilize foreign investment in 2025, which was approved by a recent State Council executive meeting. The action plan was devised by the Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission. Below are the key points:

• Expand pilot programs to open up telecommunications, healthcare, and education sectors.

• For areas not on negative lists for foreign investment access, administer foreign investment access in principle of equal treatment for domestic and foreign investment alike. Revise the negative list for market access and further reduce listed items to expand opening-up to all types of market operators.

• Improve national comprehensive demonstration zones for expanding opening-up in services sector.

• Support participation of qualified foreign-invested enterprises in segmented production of biological products on a pilot basis.

• Encourage foreign equity investment in China.

• Revise and expand catalogue of industries where foreign investment is encouraged.

• Remove restrictions on foreign-invested investment companies’ access to domestic loans.

• Encourage multinational companies to invest in and establish investment companies.

• Facilitate merger and acquisition (M&A) investment in China by foreign investors. Refine M&A rules and transaction procedures, better define scope of administration, and lower threshold for cross-border share swaps.

• Ensure that products produced by enterprises of different ownerships within China participate equally in government procurement activities. Improve handling of complaints from foreign-invested enterprises

• Support adding more foreign investment projects to list of major and key foreign investment projects.

• Better understand requests of foreign-invested enterprises and effectively respond to their concerns.

• Encourage and ensure national treatment for foreign investment in animal husbandry-related sectors such as breeding, production of rearing equipment and production of animal feed and veterinary medicine.

• Focus on attracting foreign investment in high-tech sectors.

• Encourage foreign investment utilization in services sectors including elderly care, culture and tourism, sports, healthcare, vocational education and finance.

• Encourage financial institutions to provide financing services for foreign-invested enterprises (FlEs). Guide various types of funds to carry out equity investment cooperation with FlEs.

• Continue to expand coverage of China's unilateral visa-free policy in a prudent manner. Optimize policies for port visa, visa-free transit and regional visa-free entry to promote cross-border movements of people.