ECONOMY ListPage

By Dai Qi

Foreign investment is expected to have more access to China's state-owned enterprises especially in the non-banking institutions and auto-manufacturing industry, the Economic Information Daily reported on Tuesday.

By the end of this week, restrictions for foreign investment will be relaxed or entirely removed in industries such as banking, securities, auto-manufacturing, and the construction of power grids, railway networks and chains of petrol stations.

Meanwhile, China's reforms on state-owned enterprises have also been promoted with its increasingly wider opening up, according to Cui Fan, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics.

Liu Xingguo, a researcher from the China Enterprise Confederation, predicted that foreign investment and state-owned enterprises might be initiated in the non-banking financial institutions like securities, futures and insurance companies, as well as the auto manufacturing industry. Ship and aircraft manufacturing industries are also expected to see progress.

Cui added that involvement of foreign investment in state-owned enterprises could, on the one hand, offer more opportunities for the former in China's critical industries that are controlled by the latter and have hardly been taken over by the former.

"On the other hand, foreign investment can inject more advanced technologies, management expertise, and marketing skills to state-owned enterprises," said Cui.

Zhou Lisha, a researcher from the research center of China's state-owned asset supervisory body, said that the country's mixture of reforms on its state-owned enterprises had been seen as opening arms to the capital of various ownerships.

"China has issued many policies to accelerate the involvement of foreign investment in the ownership reforms of state-owned enterprises," said Zhou.

Recently, China's state-owned asset supervisory body has repeatedly claimed that it will open up more related areas to foreign investment and provide more convenience.