China Issues Guidelines For Further Opening Economy

On September 17, the State Council and the Party Central Committee issued a set of high-level guidelines aimed at further promoting China's economic opening to the outside world. The guidelines, formally called the Opinions on Building a New and Open Economic System, focus on four major themes:

On the subject of foreign inbound investment, the guidelines endorse the so-called negative list approach, vowing to further loosen investment controls. The service sector -- in particular, finance, education, culture and healthcare -- will be further opened to foreign investors, according to the guidelines. The guidelines also state that China will remove restrictions on investment in various emerging sectors, including logistics and e-commerce. 

Section 29, which looks at bolstering world trade rules, specifically calls for China to promote the expanded Information Technology Agreement (ITA), negotiate the Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA) and push forward China's efforts to join the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA).