China issued a catalogue of industries encouraging investment in Hainan Free Trade Port on Jan 29, giving wider access to outside investors in a number of key areas with a preferential 15 percent corporate income tax rate, according to government officials.

Based on the current National Industrial Catalogue, the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries of Hainan FTP covers 14 more major categories and 143 sub-industries, making Hainan Free Trade Port the area that enjoys the most number of encouraged industries in China.

The Master Plan for the Construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port issued by the central authorities last June stipulated that encouraged enterprises incorporated and de facto operating in Hainan FTP are entitled to a preferential 15 percent corporate income tax rate.

The Circular on Preferential Corporate Income Tax Policy for Hainan Free Trade Port jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration following the release of the master plan, further specified that the term encouraged enterprise refers to a company whose primary business activity is in the Catalog of Encouraged Industries of Hainan FTP and this primary business activity should account for over 60 percent of the company's total revenue.

The Hainan-edition catalogue, effective from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2024, will be dynamically adjusted based on the needs of the construction of Hainan free trade port and will be replaced by a more favorable one by 2025.

The catalogue focuses on tourism, modern services and new and high-tech industries — the three major industries highlighted in the master plan. For instance, hotels, Hainan-style rural homestays, exhibition services, quality inspection technology services, shipping related financial services and new energy vehicle manufacturing.

Chen Xiaohua, deputy director of the Office of the Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform of the CPC Hainan Provincial Committee, said the Hainan FTP catalogue for encouraged industries also provides full consideration to Hainan's characteristics industries such as tropical agriculture, marine resources development and will encourage investment in intensive processing of tropical agricultural and forestry products, desalination of sea sand, research and development and manufacturing of marine renewable energy equipment.

Experts said release of the industry catalogue for Hainan FTP sends clear new signals of the country's unswerving push for further opening-up and facilitating free trade and investment.