China eases regulations to encourage its companies to go global with investments

BEIJING - China’s outbound investments may show on-year growth of 10% in 2014 as the administrative processes for Chinese companies’ overseas investments will be simplified. To encourage Chinese companies to invest globally, the Government has released a revised edition of overseas investment management regulations, to take effect from October 6.

The new edition supports Chinese companies by cutting down requirements: new outbound investment projects will simply be reported to the authority, rather than enduring a required process for approval. Only investments in sensitive regions and industries, about 10% of outbound investment projects, will need to be approved.

Projects that only need to report to the authority can complete the process within three working days, making the procedure shorter and easier.

Because of some regional conflicts this year, outward investments from Chinese companies will not have the same high growth as that of 2013, which was 22.8%, but by the end of 2013, 15,400 Chinese investors had established 25,400 enterprises in 184 countries and regions all over the world. www.webershandwick.cn (ATI).