对外投资新趋势

中国 - 25 / 09 / 2017

中国商事法律评论 3-2017

For the purpose of further guiding, regulating and promoting the development of outbound investments (“ODI”), on August 4, 2017, the General Office of the State Council issued a circular on forwarding the Guiding Circular of the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Further Guiding and Regulating the Direction of Outbound Investments ([Guo Ban Fa [2017] No.74]) (“Circular 74”).

The current outbound investment regulation regime is mainly constituted by the Administrative Measures for Outbound Investment issued by the Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM”) on September 6, 2014, ([Order of the Ministry of Commerce [2014] No.3]) (“MOFCOM Order No. 3”), the Administrative Measures for Approval and Record-filing on Overseas Investment Projects effective from May 8, 2014 (NDRC Order No. 9) and then further revised by the National Development and Reform Commission (“NDRC”) on December 27, 2014 (NDRC Order No. 201, collectively, “NDRC ODI Orders”) and the Administrative Provisions on Foreign Exchange of the Outbound Direct Investments of Domestic Institutions issued by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (“SAFE”) on July 13, 2009 (Hui Fa [2009] No. 30, “SAFE Circular 30”) and the Circular on Further Simplifying and Improving the Direct Investment-related Foreign Exchange Administration Policies issued by SAFE on February 13, 2015 (Hui Fa [2015] No.13, “SAFE Circular 13”).

Circular 74, on the basis of above mentioned ODI rules, further classify the outbound investments into three categories, i.e. encouraged, restrict and prohibited, and heralds supporting systems and policies to be constructed or issued to manage and distinguish the investment activities as set out in three categories.

We hereby mainly focus on the newly classified outbound investments categories introduced by Circular 74 as follows.