City sets out guidelines to attract high-end industry investors

China's capital city pledged to step up efforts to attract investment into high-end sectors as the municipal government advances economic restructuring, said a senior official.

"In the second half of this year, we will forcefully guide foreign investment into high-end projects while actively promoting projects in high-tech industries and strategic emerging industries," Zhou Weimin, head of Beijing Investment Promotion Bureau, said at a recent meeting.

"We will actively adjust industries that are not in line with the city's strategic orientation while effectively enhancing high-end industries fitting into the city's orientation through attracting corporate headquarters, talent, technology, brands and exhibitions linked to such industries," Zhou said.

In the January-June period of 2014, 826 projects meeting Beijing's strategic orientation were registered, including 172 projects by foreign investors with accumulated contract investment of $1.15 billion, according to the bureau.

In the first half, Beijing maintained "steady growth momentum" and expanded 7.2 percent from a year earlier, with non-government investment surging 27.5 percent year-on-year, higher than the 20.1-percent growth of the whole country, Zhou said.

"We have to be aware that Beijing is facing a complex and uncertain external environment. Meanwhile, we are confronted with balancing industry and population. Under this situation, it's no easy task for Beijing to maintain steady economic growth in the second half of this year."

Guo Jinlong, Beijing's Party chief, told the municipal government at an earlier meeting to value the promotion of investment, which plays a key role in economic growth. Wang Anshun, mayor of Beijing, echoed that thinking, saying more efforts should be devoted to boost investment as the city enters a new development phase.

Zhou said: "We will lure high-tech industries, producer services with high benefits, high-quality service businesses and cultural and creative industries. In particular, the capital's strategic orientation demands the development of some key industries: strategic emerging industries like new generation of information technology, biological medicine, mobile Internet, energy conservation and environment protection, medical devices and new energy vehicles; producer services like finance, information and commerce; and creative businesses like fashion, design, film and television, and entertainment."

In order to unlock the constraints on growth, such as water and air pollution and traffic congestion, the city also welcomes investment into water utilization and treatment to enhance water use, storage, recycle and supply, and investment in ecological environment building to protect the city's relics and forestry projects, Zhou said.

"We will enhance the share of social capital and private capital while channeling investments into the following industries: infrastructure and public facilities like rail transportation; sewage disposal and heat supply; high-quality living services like international schools and hospitals; and emerging sectors related to finance such as financial leasing, consumer finance and Internet finance," he said.