Aiming to attract more foreign investors, the government of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is going all out to create an ideal investment environment.

In addition to the preferential policies of the State, the autonomous region has its own incentives to offer to foreign investors.

According to the local laws and regulations related to investment, foreign investors will enjoy a wide range of incentives covering taxation, land use and convenience in administrative approval procedures.

For foreign-funded enterprises with an operational period of more than 10 years, the local taxation bureaus will return their enterprise income tax levied in the first five years, and 25 percent of the enterprise income levied in the following five years will also be returned.

Hi-tech enterprises funded by foreign investors will enjoy preferential taxation policies as practiced in the hi-tech development zones (parks) in the nation's coastal regions.

Foreign investors are allowed to buy part or all of the assets of State-owned enterprises through share holding, acquisition and merger, and debt transfer.

With respect to land use, foreign-funded enterprises are exempted from land use fees in the period of construction.

Foreign enterprises engaged in commodity export, high technology, energy and infrastructure construction and with an operational period of more than 15 years will be free from land use fees for certain years according to their scale of investment.

For example, enterprises with investments between $500,000 and $1 million will be exempted from land fees for five years after operation begins, and those with investments of more than $5 million will be exempted for 15 years.

Foreign-funded enterprises engaged in grain production and animal husbandry can be granted 50 years of land use rights by local governments.

Foreign-funded enterprises enjoy national treatment when applying for bank loans and will have preferential treatment in receiving water, electricity and gas supplies and telecommunications connections.

Foreign-funded enterprises offering job opportunities to laid-off workers from State-owned enterprises will enjoy both the State's and the autonomous region's preferential policies related to laid-off worker re-employment.

Foreign-funded businesses will also be offered one-stop service when going through approval procedures in all areas of the autonomous region because the local industrial and commercial, taxation, urban construction, environmental protection, land administration, financial and planning departments have established under-one-roof service centers especially for such enterprises.

(China Daily 07/20/2007 page4)