Despite the covid-19 pandemic, China is the only major economy that experienced economic growth in 2020 with GDP rising 2.3% and with estimated growth of 8.2% in 2021. In 2020, China also became the world's largest recipient of FDI totalling USD 144.37 billion up 6.2%.

Until a few years ago, setting up a foreign-invested company in China could be a difficult, slow, and costly process. This created the wrong perception among foreign investors, in particular SMEs and entrepreneurs, that it was too risky and not worth the trouble.

But to attract more foreign investment, China has in recent years been pushing through many new reforms. These reforms have made it steadily easier, quicker and cheaper to set-up and operate a foreign company by reducing capital requirements and taxes, offering incentives, cutting red tape, and speeding up processing times.

With fully dedicated local employees on the ground in China, foreign companies can also benefit from getting access to many more sales channels and connecting directly to a much larger and constantly evolving customer base in the Chinese market.

About the speaker:

Noam David Stern, Co-founder of China-direct.biz in Shanghai, has lived in China since 2005, and will based on his experience go through some of the most important considerations and criteria for setting-up and operating a company in China. This includes for example the latest reform policies, business indicators, key tax issues such as special incentives, registered capital, tax registration, official invoices, profit repatriation and payment remittance, company registration process, and company closure, and will conclude with some valuable practical advice when doing business in China.

China-direct.biz is a professional advisory & service firm in Shanghai that offers practical advice and supporting services to international investors and companies with their market access, company establishments and business operations in China.