Original Title: Notice of the People’s Government of Anhui Province on Issuing Several Measures to Further Optimize the Investment Environment for Foreign Investors and Strengthen Efforts to Attract Foreign Investment
I. Enhancing Investment Promotion Efforts
1. Intensify efforts to attract foreign investment in key sectors. Attract more foreign investment into Anhui’s ten emerging industries, including new energy vehicles and intelligent connected vehicles, next-generation information technology, life sciences and healthcare, and green food. Support foreign-invested enterprises in establishing regional headquarters and R&D centers in Anhui.Strengthen investment promotion efforts for the Anhui (Hefei) Innovation and Legal Services Zone, encouraging more internationally renowned foreign-invested enterprises in accounting, intellectual property, and human resources services to establish operations there, and attracting high-quality resources such as international arbitration and mediation institutions. Support foreign-invested enterprises in collaborating with vocational training institutions to conduct training in accordance with relevant regulations, and in jointly establishing and managing industry-specific colleges with various vocational schools (including technical schools).
2. Actively expand channels for utilizing foreign investment. Deepen the “Invest in Anhui” series of activities and establish institutionalized platforms such as the “Hui Moves the World” Overseas Expansion Initiative, the Overseas Investors Roundtable, and the “Global Hui Merchants” Roundtable.Leverage the resources of Anhui’s international sister provinces, states, and cities to jointly establish investment promotion cooperation mechanisms and build investment cooperation platforms. Explore new fund-based investment cooperation models, proactively engage with internationally renowned investment institutions and global funds, and strengthen capital matching, fund cooperation, and industrial cultivation. Steadily expand the Qualified Foreign Limited Partner (QFLP) pilot program to cover the entire province.
3. Optimize investment promotion mechanisms. Improve the diversified foreign investment promotion system and strengthen staffing for investment promotion. Explore more flexible recruitment mechanisms and compensation systems, such as the investment promotion employee system and specialist system. The lead units of the Provincial Emerging Industries Promotion Group and municipal governments shall organize delegations annually, as needed, to conduct routine investment promotion, conference participation, and exhibition activities overseas.
4. Strengthen the open functions of various platforms. Leverage the leading role of the Anhui Pilot Free Trade Zone in opening up, align with international high-standard economic and trade rules, actively seek national authorization, and conduct in-depth, differentiated exploration and innovation in opening up across sectors such as trade and investment facilitation, talent mobility services, finance, value-added telecommunications, healthcare, and education.Leverage the investment promotion functions of open platforms such as national-level development zones, provincial-level international cooperation industrial parks, and comprehensive bonded zones to intensify efforts to attract foreign investment. Relying on the Global Alumni Affairs Department of “UST Silicon Valley,” establish overseas innovation centers or liaison offices to attract leading Fortune 500 companies and multinational corporations to invest and cooperate in Anhui.
II. Optimizing Services for Foreign Investment
5. Strengthen services for foreign-invested projects and enterprises. Establish and improve a working mechanism whereby provincial leaders maintain direct contact with key foreign-invested enterprises. Leverage the role of the provincial task force for key foreign-invested projects to routinely provide on-site services to export-oriented enterprises across the province. Promptly collect and address various requests from enterprises regarding production and operations, and coordinate the resolution of difficulties and issues encountered during project signing, construction, and commissioning. Guide all cities in formulating corresponding working mechanisms.Implement the "Catalogue of Industries Encouraging Foreign Investment," regularly publish lists of key industries and projects for foreign investment in our province, and promote investment projects through multilingual, multi-platform, and diverse channels to attract more foreign investment in relevant sectors and industries. Restore and increase the frequency of international flights from key foreign investment source regions to our province.
6. Optimize residence and stay policies for foreign employees of foreign-invested enterprises. Seek more convenient entry and exit policies and measures, ensuring that accompanying spouses and family members of foreign executives and technical personnel at foreign-invested enterprises enjoy the same entry and temporary stay periods as their employers. Provide a “fast-track” service for work permits in China for foreign scientific and technological talent hired by foreign-invested enterprises.
7. Enhance the level of convenience for investment and business operations. Improve the convenience of foreign exchange management, support foreign-invested enterprises in accessing trade foreign exchange receipts and payments facilitation policies for high-quality enterprises, and strive to implement a unified RMB and foreign currency bank settlement account system. Support industrial parks with relevant needs in applying for the construction of dedicated international internet data channels to enhance the performance and service quality of international communication networks for foreign-invested enterprises within the parks.Explore the implementation of streamlined security management mechanisms for cross-border data flows, and guide foreign-invested enterprises in sectors such as intelligent connected vehicles and the industrial internet to conduct security assessments and filings for data transfers abroad. Coordinate law enforcement inspections related to enterprises—including work safety, environmental protection, and product quality—to achieve “one visit, multiple inspections, and completion in a single visit,” thereby minimizing the burden on enterprises to the greatest extent possible.
III. Strengthening the Protection of Foreign Investment
8. Improve mechanisms for protecting the rights and interests of foreign-invested enterprises. Enhance capabilities and standards for addressing international investment disputes. Improve the provincial complaint handling and liaison mechanism for foreign-invested enterprises, dynamically update the directory of complaint handling agencies, and continuously promote the resolution of issues involving multiple departments or policy and institutional problems. Foreign-invested enterprises shall enjoy equal access, in accordance with laws and regulations, to all policy measures introduced within the province to support industrial development and expand domestic demand.
9. Ensure that foreign-invested enterprises participate in government procurement activities in accordance with the law. Support foreign-invested enterprises in conducting innovation and R&D within the province through measures such as “first-purchase” procurement. Continuously eliminate regulations and practices in the government procurement sector that hinder fair competition, and publicize typical cases as appropriate. Innovate government procurement supervision and management models, leverage the role of government procurement complaint handling and mediation mechanisms, and promptly and fairly address objections and complaints raised by foreign-invested enterprises in accordance with regulations.
10. Support foreign-invested enterprises in participating equally and in accordance with the law in standard-setting work. Promote full transparency throughout the process of formulating and revising local standards; when relevant departments formulate local standards closely related to enterprise production and operations, they shall fully solicit the opinions of foreign-invested enterprises. Ensure that foreign-invested enterprises participate equally and in accordance with the law in standardization technical committees and standard-setting work. Encourage foreign-invested enterprises to independently formulate or jointly formulate with other enterprises original, high-quality enterprise standards and to provide standardization services.
11. Strengthen intellectual property protection for foreign-invested enterprises. Launch pilot programs for administrative adjudication of patent infringement disputes and intensify efforts in this area. Enhance intellectual property protection in the procurement of pharmaceuticals and medical consumables, and improve the system of voluntary commitments by enterprises participating in centralized bulk procurement or applying for online listing in the pharmaceutical sector. Establish the “UST Silicon Valley” as a model zone for intellectual property protection, intensify administrative law enforcement regarding intellectual property, publish typical cases of intellectual property protection, and resolutely crack down on acts that infringe upon the intellectual property rights of foreign-invested enterprises.
12. Standardize the formulation of foreign trade and economic policies. Enhance the transparency and predictability of various foreign trade and economic policy measures.
IV. Strengthen Fiscal and Tax Support
13. Strengthen financial support for foreign investment promotion. Effectively coordinate and utilize central and provincial foreign trade and economic development funds to increase support for key projects and industries funded by foreign capital. Encourage foreign-invested enterprises to increase capital and expand shareholding, actively attract foreign investors to establish investment companies and regional headquarters in Anhui, and provide foreign-invested enterprises with full-lifecycle services including investment guidance, promotion, publicity, and complaint handling.
14. Encourage foreign investors to establish R&D centers. Support eligible foreign-funded R&D centers in enjoying national tax policies supporting science and technology innovation imports and VAT refund policies for the procurement of domestically produced equipment, in accordance with regulations. Promote collaborative innovation between foreign-funded R&D institutions in Anhui and local enterprises, universities, and research institutes, and organize case selection competitions for collaborative innovation by foreign-invested enterprises. Support foreign-invested enterprises and their established R&D centers in applying for various provincial science and technology programs.
15. Encourage foreign-invested enterprises to reinvest domestically. Support eligible foreign investors in enjoying the policy of temporarily exempting withholding tax on direct investments made from distributed profits, in accordance with regulations. Establish information-sharing channels for the reinvestment of profits by foreign-invested enterprises, intensify policy publicity and guidance, and ensure targeted services and precise implementation.
V. Strengthening Implementation
16. Optimize the evaluation of foreign investment promotion. All localities and departments must resolutely implement the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, as well as the work requirements of the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government. They must effectively carry out all tasks related to further optimizing the foreign investment environment and intensifying efforts to attract foreign investment. They should establish and improve an evaluation system for the effectiveness of foreign investment promotion, integrate indicators for the scale, quality, and benefits of foreign investment, and focus on the actual contribution of foreign investment to economic and social development.
17. Strengthen Policy Publicity and Implementation. All localities and departments shall formulate specific operational guidelines for the “automatic eligibility” and “immediate eligibility” provisions of these measures. Through various channels such as on-site research, roundtable discussions with foreign-invested enterprises, and policy briefings, they shall conduct comprehensive and systematic publicity and interpretation for foreign-invested enterprises, ensuring full coverage of key sectors, key enterprises, and key platforms, and ensuring that all eligible entities are fully informed and benefit from the policies.The Provincial Department of Commerce, in conjunction with relevant departments and units, shall effectively oversee the implementation of these policies to ensure that all tasks and measures are implemented promptly and yield results as soon as possible.
18. Strengthen policy monitoring and evaluation. The Provincial Department of Commerce shall take the lead in dynamically monitoring the implementation of these policies. It shall conduct timely summaries and evaluations of implementation progress, promptly promote and replicate best practices from various regions and departments, create a more optimized investment environment for foreign investors, and stabilize and enhance the expectations and confidence of foreign-invested enterprises in Anhui.
This document shall take effect from the date of issuance and remain valid for five years.
People’s Government of Anhui Province
November 1, 2023
(This text has been abridged.)
