Without further reform and opening-up, foreign trade and foreign capital will not be stable, Premier Li Keqiang stressed when inspecting the coordination mechanisms of foreign trade and investment on March 13.

During his inspection, Premier Li made a video call and saw the construction sites of the Samsung memory chip plant in Xi'an, the BASF Guangdong integrated production base and the petrochemical project in Zhoushan.

The Samsung memory chip project in Xi'an is Samsung's largest overseas investment project. BASF's project in Guangdong, with an investment of $10 billion, is China's first wholly foreign-owned large-scale petrochemical integration project. The petrochemical project in Zhoushan is China's first privately held petrochemical project, with planned investment of over 200 billion yuan.

Premier Li said that China is facing bigger pressure and challenges in maintaining stable foreign trade and capital due to the impact of the epidemic, global economic downturn and growing trade protectionism.

The more difficult it is, the more efforts China will make to expand reform and opening-up, the Premier said.

Government departments at all levels across the country should give priority to the interest of the nation and the people, break inflexible regulations and transcend partial interest, the Premier said. They should make greater efforts to promote reform and opening-up, and accelerate bilateral and multilateral free trade agreement negotiations, he added.

Free trade zone experiences should be promoted in a wider range; the negative list for foreign investment should be further shortened; companies representing various types of ownership, and private and foreign companies should be treated equally to further create a market-oriented, law-based and international business environment, Premier Li said.