Wei Jian'guo, vice minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, told a meeting of Chinese businesses earlier this week that China would clarify its policies on overseas investment, and would ensure central and local government policies were unified.

China would encourage overseas investment in agriculture and such high-tech fields as electronics and information technology, biological engineering, new materials and aviation and aerospace, he said.

Overseas investors were also being encouraged to set up research and development centers and regional headquarters in China, and invest in such basic industries as petrochemicals, chemicals and building materials, and help upgrade the country's traditional sectors, including machinery, textiles and light industry, and get involved in energy and infrastructure projects.

He said China was improving its laws and policies on the operation of overseas venture capital firms, and catalogues of high-tech sectors for overseas investment.

China would continue to open up its tertiary industry to overseas investment. It was considering policies for involving overseas investors in restructuring some state-owned firms, including the transfer of share-holding rights.

He said China would step up efforts to implement policies to encourage overseas investment in China's impoverished central and western parts, and gradually widen the rights of overseas-funded firms to export.

China was drafting laws and regulations for overseas investment through buying Chinese firms, improving the transfer of managerial rights and access to fund and stock markets, and allowing more overseas-funded companies to be listed and set up joint venture fund or management companies.

(China Daily June 8, 2002)