many problems exist in the Chinese investment environment For foreign investors, . However, the government is making efforts to address these problems in order to encourage more foreign investment.

Foreign Economic Policies

China began its economic reforms and open-door policy in December 1978. The aim of China's macro-economic policy is to maintain a steady economic growth, to avoid big economic fluctuation and to enhance the people's living standards. The economic growth rate reached 10.2% in 1995 and 9.7% in 1996. The Chinese economic system is on its way from a centrally planning system to a market oriented one.

Attracting Foreign Investment

During the past twenty years, Chinese government has made great achievements in attracting foreign investments and developing an export-oriented economy. By the end of 1996, 230, 000 FIEs had been established with a total of US$177.1 billion foreign direct investment. Chinese government have promulgated various favorable policies for foreign investment and assigned several special regions. travel in china,read in SW35.COM!

The favorable policies mainly cover the Hi-tech industry, agriculture, forestry, telecommunication, energy, export-oriented sectors.

The special regions include five Special Economic Zones (SEZ), i.e., Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Xiamen, Shantou and Hainan (Shanghai's Pudong Area isn't an SEZ, but is treated in the same way), 14 coastal cities (Beijing city is treated as a coastal city) and 52 state-level hi-tech development zones or hi-tech bases.

These special regions can provide overseas investors a more advantageous environment in advanced infrastructures, land and qualified human resources.

Promoting Foreign Trade

For foreign trade, the total amount of import and export for the year of 1996 was US$289 billion, the 11th in the world. Although China isn't a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) now, China's entry into WTO is inevitable. The Chinese government has been actively carrying out necessary steps to promote its foreign trade, including calling off import adjusting tax and export subsidy, cutting tariffs rates. It also promises to reduce the number of goods that need import permit licenses and abolish import quota in the future.