China to reduce curbs on foreign investment
website on Sunday.
The comments appeared to be largely reiterations of past pledges by Chinese officials for further market opening.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China rose by 3% year-on-year to $135 billion in 2018, Zhong said.
That would mark a slowdown from growth rates of 7.9% in 2017 and 4.1% in 2016.
But Zhong said China had maintained stable FDI growth “against a gloomy global climate,” noting that total FDI around the world had slumped by 41% in the first half of last year. China has been pushing to broaden opportunities for private firms and foreign investors to stimulate an economy that is slowing on the back of weakening domestic demandandatradewarwith the United States.
Zhong said “properly handling” trade frictions with the United States was a major task for the ministry in 2019.
The ministry would “conscientiously implement” the consensus to work toward a resolution of the trade row reached by Chinese President Xi Jinping and US counterpart Donald Trump in Argentina late last year, he added.