Joint Venture - Chinese Law

Chinese Law

It is interesting to study the joint-venture laws of China because they are of recent vintage and because such a unique law exists.

According to a report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 2003, China was the recipient of US$53.5 billion in direct foreign investment, making it the world's largest recipient of direct foreign investment for the first time, to exceed the USA. Also, it approved the establishment of nearly 500,000 foreign-investment enterprises. The US had 45,000 projects (by 2004) with an in-place investment of over 48 billion.

Until 1949, no guidelines existed on how foreign investment was to be handled due to the restrictive nature of China toward foreign investors. Since Mao Zedong initiatives in foreign trade began to be applied, and law applicable to foreign direct investment was made clear in 1979, the first Sino-foreign equity venture took place in 2001. The corpus of the law has improved since then.

Companies with foreign partners can carry out manufacturing and sales operations in China and can sell through their own sales network. Foreign-Sino companies have export rights which are not available to wholly Chinese companies, as China desires to import foreign technology by encouraging JVs and the latest technologies.

Under Chinese law, foreign enterprises are divided into several basic categories. Of these, five will be described or mentioned here: three relate to industry and services and two as vehicles for foreign investment. Those 5 categories of Chinese foreign enterprises are: the Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures (EJVs), Sino-Foreign Co-operative Joint Ventures (CJVs), Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises (WFOE), although they do not strictly belong to Joint Ventures, plus foreign investment companies limited by shares (FICLBS), and Investment Companies through Foreign Investors (ICFI). Each category is described below.