China's Ministry of Commerce (MofCom) released its 32-page Five-Year Plan (FYP) on foreign investment
on October 18, where it indicated it hoped that foreign direct investment (FDI) into China will hit US$ 700
billion between 2021 and 2025. This is just 0.2% higher than the US$ 698 billion that landed between 2016-
2020. MofCom’s target allows for a 100 billion dollar decline, but FDI into China is still on track to hit
US$ 160 billion in 2021 – meaning that, even if investment stayed flat, the total would hit USD 800 billion
in five years. Zong Changqing, head of MofCom’s Foreign Investment Department, said: “The current
external environment for stabilizing foreign investment remains complex and grim.” He added “We will
strengthen coordination [of national security reviews] with anti-monopoly and anti-unfair-competition
reviews to build a solid defensive line on national security.” Wei Jianing, a former research fellow at the
Development Research Centre under the State Council, said it was hard to envisage a large amount of foreign investment coming into China due to deteriorating international relations. “What we are worrying
about is not only deglobalisation, but also globalisation without China,” he said at a virtual forum in August.
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