China to further alleviate burdens on companies, improve business environment

The State Council, China's cabinet, on Oct 16 called for enhanced efforts to further alleviate burdens on companies to increase the momentum of development and provide foreign investors with a better business environment.

The policies of cutting taxes and fees should be implemented carefully, and efforts should be made to solve difficulties for enterprises, to ensure that taxes on manufacturing and other major industries will drop significantly, according to a statement released after a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang.

In the first eight months, tax and fee cuts exceeded 1.5 trillion yuan (about $212.03 billion), further easing the burden on enterprises, increasing incomes and employment, and effectively stimulating market vitality, according to the meeting. It estimated that the total tax and fee cuts will surpass 2 trillion yuan by the end of this year.

Also, the cuts played a significant role in counteracting downward pressure, stabilizing the country's economy and maintaining the economic operation within a reasonable range.

The meeting urged local governments to intensify the management of fiscal budgets and maintain strict control of general expenditures.

The country should unveil more measures to create jobs, encourage entrepreneurship and innovation and reduce fee burdens on the manufacturing industry in research and development to generate endogenous growth impetus.

Meanwhile, the meeting underscored foreign investment's unique and vital role in boosting China's economic growth, calling for continuing efforts to streamline administrative procedures and enhance services to create a more attractive business environment for foreign investors.

In this regard, the country will open up wider by removing the restrictive measures not included in the foreign investment negative lists for market access both nationwide and in free trade zones, scrapping business restrictions for foreign banks, securities firms and fund management firms, and implementing the amendment to the management regulations for foreign banks and insurance companies.

While optimizing the foreign investment policies for vehicle manufacturing, the country should ensure equal market access for new energy vehicles produced by both domestic and overseas carmakers.

The meeting also urged efforts to promote investment facilitation, provide equal protection of foreign investors' lawful rights and interests, and support local authorities to attract investment.