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Forum highlights cooperation, anti-protectionism
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| Chinadaily
2009-9-9 17:13:00 |
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The International Investment Forum 2009, an important part of the 13th CIFIT, was held yesterday, with officials from home and abroad delivering speeches on the topic of “promoting international investment for the acceleration of economic recovery.”
They emphasized the importance of strengthening international cooperation and opposing trade protectionism of any kind.
“There is not a single country in the world that can fight against the global financial crisis without cooperating with others. We should strengthen exchange in terms of macroeconomic policy and speed up reform of the international financial system to make it more open and just,” said State Councilor Ma Kai.
“Besides, we should also fight against any kind of protectionism in international trade and investment because protection will only lead to retaliatory actions. Each government should think about the long-term and work toward building an open market, one that makes trade more convenient for foreign investors,” Ma said.
The key factor for China’s rapid economic growth during the past 30 years has been its opening-up policy. So far, the country has approved 660,000 foreign-invested companies and the foreign investment has reached $899 billion.
Besides, China has invested $180 billion directly in more than 170 countries and regions worldwide. However, due to the financial crisis, foreign direct investment in China has declined for 10 consecutive months. The number of foreign-investment companies established in China from January to July decreased by 27.4 percent to 12,640 and foreign investments down by 20.4 percent to $48.4 billion. Meanwhile, China’s investment in foreign countries also declined sharply to $12.4billion during the first six months of 2009.
Therefore, the government official said China will do what is best for all parties involved: on one hand provide more opportunities to foreign investors and on the other encourage domestic companies to invest abroad.
“We’ll continue to simplify approval procedures and reduce limits on foreign investors’ equity holdings. Besides, we’ll also continue to open up the nation’s service industry to foreign investors and encourage them to invest in hi-tech and new energy industries in the central and western regions. We’ll also allow qualified foreign companies to get listed on China’s stock markets,” said Minister of Commerce Chen Deming.Chen also said the country will provide timely services to support domestic companies to go
overseas.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Macedonia Vladimir Peshevski revealed that next week Haier, a
Chinese household electrical appliance manufacturer will invest jointly with the South Korea’s Triview in the country.
However, the outlook of 2009 is gloomy especially for developing countries. “It was forecast that in 2009 international investment would decline significantly and that flows to developing and emerging economies would fall by around 80 percent,” said Rama Krishna Sithanen, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economic Development of Mauritius.
“Through simplifying tax administration and approval procedures, we hope that investment from China will become a prominent share of the international investment that we are attracting,” he said.
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