China to provide more opportunities for foreign companies

BEIJING - China is committed to opening wider to the world and providing more investment opportunities for foreign companies, according to a Foreign Ministry spokesman Tuesday.

Spokesman Lu Kang made the remarks at a routine news briefing, adding that China will create a more favorable, ordered investment environment and a level playing field for foreign investments.

European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said Monday that she agreed with Chinese President Xi Jinping's remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month that no one would emerge as a winner in a trade war.

However, she also said that China's big challenge this year would be to match the rhetoric with reform.

Lu said that after nearly 40 years of reform and opening-up, China had become a main engine of growth for the world economy and that cooperation between China and the EU had been fruitful.

"China always upholds trade and investment facilitation, and opposes all kinds of protectionism," Lu said, hoping that the EU would view China's opening-up with a historical and long-term perspective.

He said that China was the second most popular investment destination in the world, citing a world investment report released by the United Nations last year.

The investment in China from 28 countries in the EU achieved a year-on-year growth of 41.3 percent in 2016, according to Ministry of Commerce statistics.

Hailing the bright future of China-Europe economic cooperation, Lu said China would make joint efforts with the EU to safeguard the open and free multilateral trading system.