An executive meeting of the State Council, chaired by Premier Li Qiang on Monday, August 19, reviewed and approved four documents, discussed policy measures to support the high-quality development of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and approved five nuclearpower projects.

Among the approved documents was the 2024edition of a series of special administrative measures, a negative list, foraccess to foreign investments.

Under the negative list, China will further ease restrictions on foreign investment by completely removing barriers to entry in the manufacturing sector, while accelerating the opening up of sectors such as telecommunications, education and health services.

Another document approved during themeeting was a set of guidelines to promote the high-quality development of service trade through high-level opening-up.

The meeting emphasized that accelerating the development of services trade is essential to expand high-level openness and promote new foreign trade drivers.

According to the meeting, efforts should be made to promote innovative development in the key areas of trade in services, as well as the integration of trade in services and trade in goods.

He also highlighted the importance of efforts to create new growth drivers for the services trade and to support the international development of professional services such as finance, consulting, design and certification.

The meeting discussed measures focused on strengthening policy coordination in the areas of taxation, finance, science and technology, industry and human resources, in order to promote innovative SMEs that use specialised and sophisticated technologies to produce new or unique products.

According to the meeting, efforts must also be made to make these SMEs smarter, more digitised and greener in an effort to improve their core competitiveness.

Noting that safety is the lifeblood of nuclear energy development, the meeting emphasized the need to strengthen safety regulations to ensure maximum safety of nuclear energy and promote the long-term sound development of the industry.