The authorities in the southeastern Chinese city of Wenzhou have announced a pilot programme to allow private citizens to invest in overseas businesses. Wenzhou is a centre for footwear production.
Under the new initiative, private citizens will be permitted to invest in, own, control and run companies outside China. This will allow footwear entrepreneurs, for example, to take controlling stakes in footwear production companies in different parts of the world.
Residents of Wenzhou set up around 600 companies overseas in the course of 2009, but in many cases this was in contravention of the existing regulations regarding the flow of capital from China to other countries. The authorities have decided to change the rules to see if it makes it easier for them to keep track of these transactions.
CITATION http://www.chinaleather.org/eng/show.php?itemid=5790
