Foreign investment approvals eased

Facilitating procedures will smooth path into markets and boost overall financing

The removal and streamlining of approval procedures for certain foreign-invested projects will attract and assist overseas companies while benefiting overall investment this year, experts and industry insiders said.

In a recently released guideline, the National Development and Reform Commission said that foreign-invested projects under $30 million will no longer need to follow filing procedures for approval.

Also, approval for projects over $30 million and under $300 million will be handed from ministerial-level authorities to provincial-level ones. The projects must be in industries covered by China's Catalogue of Industries for Encouraging Foreign Investment.