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China Lifts Some Restrictions on Foreign Investment into Telecoms

China announced that some limits to foreign investment into telecommunications services in four pilot areas will be lifted, SCMP reports.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued the Notice on the Launching of a Pilot Project to Expand the Opening Up of Value-Added Telecommunications Services to Foreign Investment (关于开展增值电信业务扩大对外开放试点工作的通告) on April 8, designating Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hainan province as the pilot areas. Under this scheme, caps on foreign ownership will be lifted "for businesses involved in several varieties of telecoms services, including data centers, content distribution, internet access, online data and transaction processing as well as information release, delivery and protection." However, foreign investors cannot obtain full ownership of "online news publishing, online audiovisual services and internet cultural services."

Governments in the four pilot areas will have to draft their own assessment plans, which must be approved by the MIIT. The MIIT hopes to summarize best practices from the trial period and potentially expand these rules to other parts of China if successful.