China's ongoing reform in its investment system will create a more favorable system environment for foreign investors by simplifying relevant procedures, a senior official with the State Development and Reform Commission said Wednesday.

Jiang Weixin, vice minister of the State Development and Reform Commission, told a press conference on China's new reform in investment system Wednesday that the State Council, China's cabinet, has just publicized a major decision on deepening the reform of its investment system on July 19, enabling businesses to make final decisions on investment and the market to allocate resources.

Jiang said the investment system reform still sticks to China's opening up policy, with current policies and measures encouraging more foreign investment unchanged. What's more, the reform will create a more favorable system environment for the foreign investors.

Jiang said one improvement is that the reform will further simplify the approval procedures for foreign investment projects.

Another improvement is that the reform will empower China's provincial governments more rights in approving foreign investment projects, said Jiang.

He added, for the foreign investment projects encouraged or permitted by the Chinese governments, the provincial governments will have the right to authenticate projects worthy of less than 100 million US dollars according to the reform, while the highest benchmark in the past was 30 million dollars.

In addition, for the group of foreign investment projects still under limitation, the benchmark of the provincial governments will also be raised from 30 million dollars to 50 million dollars, said Jiang.

(Xinhua News Agency July 28, 2004)