外刊经贸知识选读 第二课翻译.docVIP

旺旺英语 Lesson 2 The curtain goes up Peking permits foreign investment all along its coastline --- creating differing rules and added confusion By Mary Lee in Beijing A clearly confident China has rolled up a large section of its bamboo curtain, declared itself “open to the outside world” and hung signs on nearly all its cities inviting foreign investors to come and do serious business. The four special economic zones (SEZs) in Guangdong and Fujian provinces, 14 coastal cities (all former treaty ports) and Hainan island (10 “open” areas in all) have specifically designed tax and other incentives for the foreign investor. But every provincial capital is doing its best to attract foreign investment. The foundation for all this was assembled in piecemeal form, beginning in mid—1979 with the State Council’s decision to set up four SEZs in the south. Then a joint-venture law was published for the first time (albeit one full of holes), quickly followed by procedures for “compensation trade” --- both or which were designed to attract foreign investment to these four zones. The following year, a tax law for joint ventures was promulgated. But even as businessmen battled with bureaucracy in an effort to fulfil their hopes of doing business with a potential market of 1 billon people, Chinese leaders were growing impatient with the rate of progress in the showpiece SEZ—Shenzhen. In April 1984, after the country’s top leaders had visited the Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Xiamen SEZs, the state Council declared 14 cities along the entire coast plus Hainan island open to foreign investment, thus introducing a real element of competition into the country’s economic-development programme. Then came the much-publicised “decision on reform of the economic structure” and suddenly, the race to get foreign technology and funds was on. For foreign investors, the prospect of having access to a market of 1 billion consumers no longer seems like a piped