作者：华俊力

广东知恒律师事务所

On August 30, 2022, the 11th meeting of the Standing Committee of the Seventh People's Congress of Shenzhen Municipality passed the Regulations on Foreign Investment in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations"), which will come into effect on November 1, 2022. The Regulations take the life cycle of foreign investment access and operation as the context, focus on the concerns of foreign-invested enterprises, solidify the results of foreign investment practice in our city by refining relevant laws and administrative regulations, and make a series of institutional arrangements in promoting foreign investment, protecting the lawful rights and interests of foreign investment, and regulating the management of foreign investment.

The Regulations consists of six chapters (46 articles in total)

1  General Provisions

Chapter 2  Investment Access

Chapter 3  Investment Facilitation

Chapter 4  Protection of Rights and Interests

Chapter 5  Government Services

Chapter 6  Supplementary Provisions

The following is a brief analysis of the regulations in separate chapters to facilitate readers to quickly understand the key information:

Chapter 1: General Provisions

There are eight articles in this chapter, keywords: promotion, service, protection, encouragement; The frequency of the above four keywords is:

●  Promotion * 8 times

●  service * 5 times

●  protection * 4 times

●  encouragement * 4 times

These figures clearly show that Shenzhen attaches great importance to foreign investment and is determined to adhere to open cooperation; actively implement the basic principles and spirit of the "Foreign Investment Law of the People's Republic of China" and the "Regulations on the Implementation of the Foreign Investment Law of the People's Republic of China".

Chapter 2: Investment Access

The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone implements a negative list management system for foreign investment access in accordance with law. At the same time, for key development areas such as advanced manufacturing, emerging industries, high and new technology, energy conservation and environmental protection, foreign investors are encouraged and guided to invest in the national "Catalogue of Industries Encouraged for Foreign Investment" and the city's key development areas.

In this way, in terms of the scope of investment, foreign investors entering Shenzhen are given clear guidance.

At the end of the article, we will attach the above link to the "negative list and encouragement directory" for readers' reference.

Chapter 3: Investment Facilitation

Chapter 3: Investment Facilitation

There are seven articles in this chapter. Keywords: convenience, frequency of occurrence 8 times. The word "convenience" that appears many times covers almost the entire process of foreign investment, such as:

●   Registration, Change

●  Foreign Employees' Salary Purchase of Foreign Exchange

● Cross-border financing in local and foreign currencies

●   Electronic settlement services

●   Equity transactions, capital inflows

●   Finance, taxation, finance, land use

●   Cancellation

In recent years, in the process of serving "foreign-funded enterprises in Shenzhen", "capital inflow, settlement, and cross-border financing in local and foreign currencies" are often hot legal consultation issues, because China's "State Administration of Foreign Exchange, State Administration of Taxation" and other administrative organs have corresponding management regulations on foreign exchange; The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone has passed legislation to provide corresponding convenience for foreign-invested enterprises, which can not only "bring in" foreign investment, but more importantly, enable foreign-invested enterprises to "retain".

In particular, the specific measures mentioned in "Articles 17 and 19" such as "electronic settlement", "online handling, notarization handling" and other specific measures further reflect the "humanization" of the legislation of the regulations. In practice, because the shareholders or legal representative of foreign-invested enterprises are often foreigners and are not in China all year round, if it is mandatory to "handle on the spot" or "provide original documents", it will cause a lot of trouble, and the methods of "online processing" and "accepting notarized and certified documents" can solve the practical problems.

Chapter 4: Protection of Rights and Interests

There are nine articles in this chapter, keywords: complaints, and the frequency of occurrence is 20 times.

Focusing on "complaints", it reflects "protection", and equal protection of foreign investors in accordance with the law is the focus of this chapter, and the rights and interests of foreign investors are comprehensively protected from multiple angles, such as "intellectual property protection", "foreign investor feedback mechanism", "foreign investor complaint handling mechanism", and "international diversified dispute resolution mechanism".

Chapter 5: Government Services

This chapter has a total of 15 articles, which is the largest number of articles in the entire ordinance, keyword: services.

As mentioned above, "investment facilitation", "rights and interests protection" and other regulations, if you leave the government services of the administrative department, it is difficult to imagine how they will be specifically implemented, so it is very important to build a comprehensive and precise investment promotion service. Therefore, this section is aimed at the following subjects:

●   Municipal and district governments

●   Municipal and district commerce departments

●   Municipal and district science and technology innovation departments

●   Municipal market supervision and management departments

●   Municipal and district judicial administrative departments

●   Customs

The regulations stipulate specific government service requirements in detail, from "investment promotion incentives" before the introduction of foreign investment to "R&D and innovation", "training", "government-enterprise communication", "customs and trade facilitation", "foreign-related dispute resolution" and other comprehensive implementation measures after foreign investment comes to Shenzhen.

Chapter 6: Supplementary Provisions

The supplementary provisions clearly stipulate that "the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Macao Special Administrative Region and Chinese citizens residing abroad shall invest in the Special Administrative Region with reference to these Regulations", which is completely consistent with Shenzhen's regional positioning as the core of the Greater Bay Area.

The regulations will come into effect on November 1, and there are many provisions on the active promotion of foreign investment, which are not repeated one by one due to space restrictions, and it is believed that the implementation of the regulations will play a positive and sustainable role in promoting foreign investment in Shenzhen, and Shenzhen will have a better future.

Notice of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce on the issuance of the Negative List for Market Access  (2022 Edition):

http://tfs.mofcom.gov.cn/article/bc/202204/20220403303026.shtml

Catalogue of Industries Encouraged for Foreign Investment  (2020 Edition):

https://zfxxgk.ndrc.gov.cn/web/iteminfo.jsp?id=18493