Foreign investors enjoy national treatment in Xinjiang

Foreign investors can enjoy the same treatment in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as Chinese companies or citizens in terms of infrastructure and land policies, according to a recently released document by Xinjiang government, the Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday.

In response to the State Council’s call for further opening- up and utilizing foreign capital, Xinjiang is striving to build a market mechanism based on fairness and transparency, in order to create an investment environment with equal rights, opportunities and rules, according to the report.

“As the core zone of the Silk Road Economic Belt, Xinjiang’s economy will benefit from attracting foreign capital, reinforcing its strategic position in linking western China with other regions as well as expanding the international route,” Zhang Baotong, a research fellow with the Shaanxi Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday.

The specific privileges for foreign investors include allowing foreign companies to participate in the bidding for infrastructure projects in the way of franchising while receiving the same treatment as their Chinese counterparts enjoy.

Xinjiang also welcomes high- level foreign talents, who already have permanent residence permits, to estab- lish high technology firms and will offer them the same treatment as Chinese residents.

Besides, foreign companies in China’s western region are encouraged to move to Xinjiang in an orderly way, endowed with the policy privilege in corporate income tax and land, it said.

“Implementation of the policy will be helpful in stabilizing the scale and speed of foreign investment and improving the standard of the use of foreign capital,” a representative of the Xinjiang Development and Reform Commission told Xinhua on Saturday.