October 23, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organization held a value-added telecommunications business to expand the opening up of the pilot symposium, the official launch of Beijing, Shanghai, Hainan, Shenzhen, four value-added telecommunications business, to expand the opening up of the pilot work.

At the meeting, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to Beijing, Shanghai, Hainan, Shenzhen, four places issued to carry out the pilot review. After the implementation of the pilot, foreign-funded enterprises can be wholly owned in the pilot areas of the Internet Data Center (IDC), online data processing and transaction processing and other telecommunications business, deep participation in China’s arithmetic, cloud services and other markets, and promote the development of China’s digital industry.

The launch of this pilot is a further exploration of expanding the opening of the telecommunications market, fully demonstrating the attitude and determination of China’s telecommunications industry to take the initiative to buttress the international high-standard economic and trade rules through opening up, to stimulate the vitality of market players, to consolidate the confidence of foreign investors in China’s development, and to share with the world the dividends of China’s digital economy development.

1. It is steadily expanding the scope of liberalization of telecommunication services. At the time of joining the WTO, we committed to liberalize 4 of the 10 value-added telecommunication services, but now we have taken the initiative to broaden the scope of liberalization to 8, and have lifted the restrictions on the ratio of foreign shares in 4 of these services, thus significantly raising the level of liberalization.

2. We have continued to expand the geographical scope of liberalization, taking the lead in opening up value-added telecommunication businesses to the outside world in the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone (PFTZ) in 2013, replicating the policy in all the PFTZs in 2018, and removing the restrictions on the ratio of foreign shares in a number of businesses such as call centers on a nationwide scale in 2019, so as to release the dividends of China’s policies from the point of view of the whole country.

3. It is continuing to optimize the business environment in the telecommunications market. We have upgraded the level of foreign investment access facilitation, merged the approval of foreign investment access with the approval of telecom business licenses, simplified the licensing and approval procedures for value-added telecom businesses in the Pilot Free Trade Zones, and continued to create a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, rule of law-oriented and internationalized.

    

As of the end of September 2024, the number of foreign-funded enterprises authorized to operate telecom business in China increased to 2,220, and a number of internationally renowned enterprises have invested and operated telecom business in China, playing a positive role in promoting the prosperity of China’s telecom market.