China’s Encouraged Catalogue 2025

A Regional Investment Guide for Global Companies

With the release of the Encouraged Catalogue for Foreign Investment Industries (2025 Edition), China has sent a clear and confident message to the global market: its commitment to opening up is not slowing down—it is becoming more targeted, more strategic, and more focused on high-quality growth.

The new Catalogue is far more than an update to an existing policy list. It functions as a practical investment roadmap, guiding international capital toward industries critical to China’s next phase of economic transformation, while also directing investment into regions with untapped development potential.

I. Why the Catalogue Matters: Policy Logic and Strategic Intent

The Encouraged Catalogue is one of China’s most important policy instruments for shaping foreign investment. It combines industry priorities with regional development objectives, helping investors align commercial strategy with national policy direction.

The 2025 revision adopts a dual-layer structure:

• a National Catalogue, applicable across China; and
• Regional Catalogues, tailored to specific parts of the country.

This structure reflects three core policy goals:

1. Upgrading manufacturing and strengthening industrial value chains
2. Expanding access to modern services
3. Optimising the geographic distribution of foreign investment

Against a backdrop of global economic restructuring, China is using clearer and more transparent policy tools to reinforce predictability and long-term confidence for international investors.

The National Catalogue defines sectors encouraged nationwide—such as biopharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, and artificial intelligence—steering foreign capital toward innovation-driven growth.

The Regional Catalogues, covering Central & Western China, Northeast China, and Hainan, build on the national list by adding region-specific industries that qualify for stackable incentives, including preferential corporate income tax rates (notably 15% in Western China and Hainan). These catalogues are designed to leverage local strengths, promote orderly industrial relocation, and rebalance China’s economic geography.

For global companies pursuing long-term growth, understanding this regional differentiation is essential to capturing the next wave of “China opportunities.”

II. Regional Strategy in Focus: Three Distinct Investment Value Propositions

The defining feature of the 2025 Catalogue is its philosophy of “national alignment with regional differentiation.” While baseline incentives apply across regions, each area brings its own strategic advantages.

1. Central & Western China: Cost Efficiency Meets Resource Depth

Central and Western China serve as China’s manufacturing and energy heartland, positioned to absorb industrial relocation while offering strong cost and resource advantages.

The 2025 Catalogue encourages foreign investment in areas such as:

• Advanced machinery and equipment manufacturing (e.g. smart and high-end lifting equipment in Henan)
• Energy development and renewables (e.g. wind power operations in Qinghai)
• Transport and logistics infrastructure
• Agriculture and tourism linked to unique natural and cultural resources

Key incentives include:

• Tariff exemptions on imported self-use equipment (within approved investment scope)
• Land cost reductions, with industrial land prices as low as 70% of national benchmarks, and flexible models such as “lease-first-then-transfer”
• 15% corporate income tax for encouraged projects in most Western and Central provinces (including Sichuan, Shaanxi, Guizhou, and others)

This region is particularly attractive for manufacturing scale-up, supply-chain relocation, and cost-sensitive expansion strategies.

2. Northeast China: Industrial Upgrading and the Rise of the “Cold Economy”

As China’s traditional industrial base, Northeast China’s policy focus is on industrial upgrading and diversification, while unlocking the value of its distinctive climate, ecological, and cultural assets.

In addition to strengthening core equipment manufacturing, the 2025 Catalogue introduces new encouraged sectors such as:

• Ice-and-snow equipment R&D and manufacturing (Heilongjiang)
• Cruise tourism services (Liaoning)

This marks a shift from a singular focus on industrial revitalisation toward a more diversified model that integrates manufacturing, tourism, and seasonal economies.

While the 15% corporate income tax rate does not generally apply across the Northeast, investors can still benefit from:

• Tariff exemptions on imported equipment
• Preferential land pricing (up to 70% of national benchmarks), particularly for advanced manufacturing facilities and large-scale tourism projects

3. Hainan: China’s Highest-Level Experiment in Institutional Opening

Hainan occupies a unique position as China’s largest Free Trade Port and its most ambitious testing ground for institutional openness. The province is being positioned as a gateway for global companies entering the China and Asia-Pacific markets.

Beyond the National Catalogue, Hainan adds 102 additional encouraged sectors, with a strong focus on:

• Tropical agriculture
• Marine industries
• Clean energy
• Aerospace
• Information technology services
• Modern business services

Hainan combines a 15% corporate income tax with its signature framework of zero tariffs, low tax rates, and simplified tax administration.

More importantly, the deepening of its “first-line liberalisation, second-line control” customs model—together with increasingly seamless cross-border flows of capital and talent—creates unmatched platform value for trading, R&D, and regional headquarters operations.

In preparation for full island-wide customs closure, Hainan has also launched the Cross-Border Finance Services Plan for the Hainan Free Trade Port, integrating banks, investment institutions, and insurers into a one-stop, end-to-end financial services ecosystem. For international companies, this functions as a practical navigation chart and toolkit for operating in a high-openness environment.

III. Nationwide Incentives: What All Encouraged Projects Can Access

Regardless of location, projects listed in the Encouraged Catalogue are eligible for a core set of national incentives:

1. Tariff exemptions
   Imported self-use equipment within the approved investment amount is exempt from customs duties (except items explicitly excluded by regulation).
2. Land use incentives
   For intensive-use industrial projects, land transfer prices may be reduced to as low as 70% of national benchmarks, with flexible options such as long-term leasing or lease-then-transfer to reduce upfront capital pressure.
3. Tax credit for profit reinvestment
   Overseas investors reinvesting onshore profits into China—through capital increases, new entities, or acquisitions—may receive a 10% tax credit against payable corporate income tax.
   In practice, this has delivered material savings: for example, Shanghai-based Kelon reported tax reductions exceeding RMB 3 million for a new factory investment.
4. Enhanced government facilitation
   Major foreign investment projects benefit from dedicated taskforces, fast-track approval channels, and streamlined reinvestment procedures, significantly lowering hidden transaction and compliance costs.

IV. A Practical Action Checklist for Entering China

Policy awareness is only the starting point. Speed and execution determine success. As a local partner, we recommend a phased approach:

Phase 1: Strategic Positioning

1. Match industry and region
   Align your business line with the region’s “core advantage”:
   cost and scale in Central/Western China,
   industrial foundations and niche resources in the Northeast,
   or global connectivity and policy openness in Hainan.
2. Quantify incentives
   Work with finance and advisory teams to model the real impact of the 15% tax rate, 10% reinvestment credit, and land and tariff savings on your specific project.

Phase 2: Establishment and Acceleration

3. Optimise investment structure
   Assess whether to establish a new entity or expand via profit reinvestment. The latter can unlock immediate tax benefits and accelerate asset growth in China.
4. Activate one-stop establishment services
   Use professional support to complete company registration, banking, and tax setup efficiently—while leveraging any local “green channel” mechanisms.
5. Design a flexible employment model
   Combine direct hiring for core roles with outsourced or flexible staffing for non-core functions. This balances control, agility, and early-stage compliance risk.

Phase 3: Long-Term Growth

6. Localise R&D and supply chains
   Tap into China’s complete industrial ecosystem by establishing R&D centres or deepening local sourcing to enhance responsiveness and resilience.
7. Integrate into the local innovation ecosystem
   Collaborate with universities, research institutes, and industrial parks to translate local market demand into product and technology innovation.

V. Why Now?

For global companies, entering China today is not just about preferential policies—it is about a strategic window that is unlikely to repeat.

• Greater predictability
  From the full removal of foreign ownership limits in manufacturing to transparent policy tools like the Encouraged Catalogue, China’s opening framework is becoming clearer and more stable.
• Market upgrading and segmentation
  China’s vast market is evolving into multiple high-value niches—from pet healthcare to ice-and-snow tourism to intelligent manufacturing—each offering new growth narratives.
• A strategic anchor in global value chains
  As global supply chains are reshaped, establishing a strategic footprint in China embeds your business in the world’s most complete and responsive industrial system.

From interpreting local implementation rules to designing optimal investment pathways and building compliant, high-performing teams, every step matters.

As your trusted local partner, we provide not only policy navigation, but also end-to-end solutions spanning company setup, employment and payroll management, benefits design, and ongoing compliance advisory.

Contact us to turn China’s regional opportunities into the next growth engine of your global strategy.

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