Premier Li Keqiang reassures Hong Kong over mainland China’s foreign investment law
- Some in the city worried it would miss out on benefits of tweaks to how overseas companies are treated
- But premier offers highest-level affirmation yet that it will not
Speaking at a press conference with domestic and international media, Li said: “The foreign investment law may be used as a reference in relation to investments from these three regions. Moreover, the institutional arrangements and actual practices that have long been in place and proven effective will go on.”
The new law, set to come into effect on January 1, 2020, is intended to level the playing field for overseas investors and reassure the global community that China remains an attractive investment destination, by tweaking the rules around things such as market access and forced technology transfers.
Businesspeople in Hong Kong had raised concerns that the new law – whose draft did not mention Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan – would not apply to the city, depriving them of its benefits.
Li’s was the highest-level affirmation yet that that would not be the case. It came hours after the national legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), approved the law with 2,929 supporting votes, eight opposing and eight abstaining, at its closing meeting on Friday morning.
On March 4, a day before the annual NPC assembly opened, its spokesman Zhang Yesui clarified that the three regions would be covered by the new law. On Monday, Beijing’s top official for Hong Kong and Macau affairs, Zhang Xiaoming, said the same.
