At a meeting on deepening reform on Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for his country to open up more in areas such as trade, investment and financial innovation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for greater opening up for the world’s second-largest economy to focus on foreign cooperation in areas such as trade and investment.
“The focus should be on key areas of cooperation such as foreign exchange and investment, trade and financial innovation, while creating a new development model and promoting structural opening,” Xi said at a meeting on deepening reform on Tuesday, CCTV reported.
China’s attempts to encourage foreign investors have increased in recent weeks as it became clear that the recovery in the economy has begun to wane after Beijing’s zero-Covid policies ended.
Authorities took a step earlier this week to support the troubled real estate market by extending loan support for developers. While other important components of the economy, such as consumer spending and exports, remained stagnant, the latest data point to a deepening of deflation.
Restriction this year to foreign consulting firms that help global investors and multinationals understand China, as part of a nationwide anti-espionage campaign, has dampened the appetite for investment from overseas firms.
During her recent visit to Beijing, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed her concerns about China’s “off-market” practices and “coercive actions” against American firms. Just days before Yellen’s arrival, senior Communist Party officials had visited Bain & Company, a US firm located in Shanghai’s financial hub, for the first time since pressure on the industry scared global investors.
On the other hand, during the reform meeting, Xi called for better regulation of energy consumption and control of carbon emissions, in a renewed move to make the country carbon neutral by 2060.