China is set to give U.S. investors more access to the market, as Premier Li Keqiang announced at a news conference after the conclusion of the annual legislative session in Beijing on Wednesday, March 16, the Global Times reported.
Li made the remarks while China and the U.S. are under negotiations on a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), which experts observed as making a slow movement forward.
Li said during the news conference that the two countries' common interests are bigger than their differences, adding that China was the U.S.'s biggest trading partner in 2015, with bilateral trading volume reaching $560 billion.
The Chinese premier added that the process of increasing market must be reciprocal as the two sides are now striving to speed up the BIT talks.
According to the report, as of Jan. 2016, a total of 24 rounds of talks have been carried out by the two countries, since the Sino-U.S. BIT negotiations started in 2008.
Some observers criticized that progress have been slow, but experts said the process is gradual as it needs the efforts of the two sides.
"China will further open its market to foreign companies in the future despite the many challenges it faces during the current economic structural transformation," Huang Wei, director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), told the Global Times.
Huang said that one of the efforts of China in the BIT negotiations is to increase access for U.S. investors, noting the "difference in the requirements for foreign capital access because the U.S. has a more open market than China."
Experts said that China's plans to launch a nationwide negative list for investment management by 2018 and the drafting rules for investment from foreign companies are parts of intensified efforts to regulate the domestic investment environment.
"The U.S. is expected to offer the same treatment to Chinese firms that seek business development in the U.S. as companies from other countries and regions," Huang said.
On the other hand, Zhang Ning, a research fellow with the National Academy of Economic Strategy at the CASS, said that the Chinese government is not biased against U.S. companies but welcomes them.
"From a regulatory point of view, the U.S. government does not hold any bias against Chinese investment, though in practice the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States seems to apply more stringent rules when reviewing investment from China, especially in the telecommunications, data processing and cybersecurity sectors," Zhang said.
"The question is whether the U.S. can open up to investment from Chinese companies," Zhang said, saying that concerning trading goods with China, the U.S. already has a mature policy.
"China's opening-up needs to take gradual steps based on its national conditions," Bai Ming, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said.
"The trade imbalance between China and the U.S. is due to China exporting more goods to the U.S., but is also in part due to U.S. limits on exports, such as high-tech products, to China," Bai noted.
In recent years, an increasing number of Chinese firms have entered the U.S. market as China is actively "going global," which has caused some concerns in the U.S., experts said.
Zhang said that the U.S. also treats with caution the investments made by Chinese state-owned enterprises.
Premier Li said during the press conference that the U.S. is aware of this and that the Sino-U.S. bilateral economic relationship has always offered mutual benefits.
A survey by the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham China) released in January showed that despite the regulatory challenges they face, majority of U.S. companies remain optimistic about the market potential in China.
According to the report, 37 percent of the AmCham member companies expected the negotiations to be completed in 2018, while 36 percent saw BIT to be completed in or before 2017.
The 2016 China Business Climate Survey Report was based on a poll of AmCham China's member companies, numbering about 500, which was conducted in partnership with U.S.-based Bain & Company.