On the last day of June in 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce jointly promulgated the Special Administrative Measures (Negative List) for Foreign Investment Access (Edition 2019) (“National List”) and the Special Administrative Measures (Negative List) for Foreign Investment Access in Pilot Free Trade Zones (2019 Version) (“FTZ List”) simultaneously, both of which will be implemented starting from July 30, 2019. It is worth mentioning that the length of both lists has been further cut down based on their 2018 editions, with the items under the National List being reduced from 48 to 40 and the items under the FTZ List being reduced from 45 to 37.

 In addition, the encouraged industry list under the Catalogue of Industries for Guiding Foreign Investment (Revision 2017) and the Catalogue of Priority Industries for Foreign Investment in Central and Western China (Revision 2017) have been replaced by the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries for Foreign Investment (Edition 2019). Compared with the two simplified negative lists, the encouraged industry catalogue of 2019 has increased items to encourage foreign investment in almost all industries.

In order to assist foreign investors and those who are interested in cross border investment to get a clearer picture of the differences between Edition 2019 of the two lists and their Edition 2018, we have made two longitudinal comparisons. Meanwhile, to further assist foreign investors to understand the differences between foreign investment access in and out of the free trade zones, we have also made a comparison between the National List and the FTZ List which aims to enable producers or traders to choose suitable registration places depending on their business needs.

Ⅰ、Longitudinal Comparison of the National Lists

Compared with the National List Edition 2018, the Edition 2019 has repealed all foreign investment access restrictions in seven sub-sectors of five industries, including mining, manufacturing, transportation, warehousing and postal services, water, environment and public facilities management, culture, sports and entertainment with details set forth below:

Ⅱ、Longitudinal Comparison of the FTZ Lists

Compared with FTZ List Edition 2018, the Edition 2019 has repealed any and all foreign investment access restrictions in 7 sub-sectors of six industries including agriculture, forestry, husbandry and fishery, mining, manufacturing, transportation, warehousing and postal services, water, environment and public facilities management, culture, sports and entertainment with details set forth below:

Ⅲ、Parallel Comparison of the National List and the FTZ List

As mentioned above, compared with Edition 2018, both the National List and the FTZ List have been “simplified greatly”. However, except for those two sub-sectors of the agriculture, forestry, husbandry and fishery, and manufacturing industries for which the foreign investment access restrictions (on development of State-protected wild animal and plant resources originated in China and printing of publications) have been repealed under the two Edition 2019 lists, the differences between the two Edition 2019 lists are almost the same as those between the two Edition 2018 lists.