On August 5th, 2020, the Chinese State Council released Guobanfa 2020/28 (hereafter, 'Announcement'), which stated the government's intention to both safeguard current foreign investment in the country while continuing to attract more of it going forward despite the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world's economy.

In terms of specific support instruments, the Announcement listed 15 policy directions that would be used to achieve the abovementioned aim, of which the ones relevant to the GTA's research are listed below:

• Increase the amount of support provided through 'pilot programmes', such as the cross-borded e-commerce zone programme (see related act);
• Increase extent of preferential policies for 'labour-intensive' enterprises;
• Support 'large-scale key foreign trade enterprises' on a case-by-case basis with measures such as increased export tax rebates;
• Implement USD 81.7bn (CNY 570bn) of new loans from the China Export-Import Bank to support same firms as above;
• For 'key projects' with a foreign investment quotient of USD 100m or more, release a list of these and target them with direct support through various subsidies;
• Reduce the threshold for foreign-funded R&D centres to receive support (a lot of these policies already exist, so any reduction of the threshold is significant, an example is linked as a related act).

The GTA uses these top-level announcements to track a policy as it filters down the various levels of government, hence why this is included on the site with an amber, not-yet-implemented research rating.

Any policies arising from the promulgation of this Announcement will be linked to this state act.