To further improve its business environment and services for foreign investors, the Yunnan provincial gov­ernment recently issued the Opinions on Effectively Resolving Blind, Pain­ful and Difficult Points Facing For­eign Investors to Encourage Foreign Investment (hereafter called “Opin­ions”).

The Opinions further expands market access and identifies 15 sec­tors in which the establishment of wholly foreign owned enterprises are encouraged in the province. These sectors cover the digital economy, the province’s eight key industries and its efforts to develop green energy, green food and to build itself into a destina­tion for healthy living.
 

The Opinions proposes a series of financial incentive policies to increase the utilization of foreign capital, at­tract big and strong foreign investors, introduce foreign investment to the financial industry and set up foreign funded institutions for research, de­velopment and innovation. For new projects (excluding residential real estate and projects related to finance) that actually utilize foreign capital of more than US$30 million (exclud­ing foreign shareholder loans), as well as capital increase projects that utilize foreign capital of more than US$10 million (excluding foreign shareholder loans), the province will give each of them a reward that is two percent of the actually utilized foreign investment in the year (up to 50 million yuan, or about 7.2 million US dollars). The province also prom­ises to give a one-time reward of five million yuan (about 72,000 US dol­lars) to each of the newly established foreign-owned legal person financial institutions or branches of foreign fi­nancial institutions.
 

The Opinions also highlights sup­port for major projects. In particular, for leading, base-type foreign-invest­ed projects with a total investment of more than US$100 million, govern­ment entities at the provincial, prefec­tural and city levels will jointly make land-use plans. For foreign-invested projects with a total investment of more than US$200 million and cer­tain levels of investment intensity, and if they have completed proper land supply procedures, the province will fully allocate the required land to them.

According to the Opinions, the ur­gently needed high-level talent of for­eign invested enterprises in the prov­ince can apply for housing and work subsidies. Upon assessment, such tal­ents can receive housing subsidies of 500,000 yuan (US$72,059), 300,000 yuan (US$43,235) and 200,000 yuan (US$28,823), as well as work subsi­dies of 100,000 yuan (US$14411), 70,000 yuan (US$10,088) and 50,000 yuan (US$7,205). (Staff cor­respondents)

[Read More] The 15 indus­tries where Yunnan encourages sole foreign investment include manufac­turing of new energy vehicles, manu­facturing of special purpose vehicles, manufacturing of key components for new energy vehicles, the construc­tion and operation of automobile gas-filling stations, the construction of chain gasoline stations, the in­tensive processing of non-ferrous metals, the development and appli­cation of new-type natural rubber, the development and manufacturing of natural flavours and fragrances, the development and production of nutritious and protective foods, the development and application of special edible products, the develop­ment and production of biomedicine, manufacturing of new-type electronic components, manufacturing of touch systems, the development and manu­facturing of virtual reality and aug­mented reality equipment, and the development and application of the Internet of Things technologies.