The State Council published a policy on Jan 9 to encourage investment from more foreign enterprises into Shanghai's Free Trade Zone (FTZ).

The new policy has made several changes on the previous ones including in aspects of aircraft industry, entertainment industry, financial industry, tourism, education and rail traffic.

One of the major changes is that the new policy has removed the restriction of investment from foreign enterprises, in areas such as the industry of shipping, aircraft manufacturing and rail traffic.

In sea transportation, wholly foreign-owned enterprises that are doing the business, such as shipping, ship management, cargo handling, marine container and storage, will be allowed to be established at FTZ. Foreign enterprises are allowed to do businesses as international shipping agency in the form of joint ventures and cooperation. In addition, the allowed shareholding ratio has been lifted to 51 percent.

In aviation, foreign enterprises are permitted to carry out work such as selling inflight meals, establishing parking lots, and storing goods in the form of sole proprietorship. The foreign enterprises are spared the obligation of having to maintain the airplanes at the global market if the enterprises invest in airplane maintenance.

Foreign enterprises are also permitted to design, manufacture and maintain the general-purpose planes which weigh six tons and hold no more than nine seats in the form of sole proprietorship. The investment restrictions of designing and manufacturing helicopters for civil use weighing more than three tons have been removed.

In rail traffic, the requirement that over 70 percent of the foreign invested railway transportation project have to be domesticized has been removed.

Foreign enterprises have long been restricted to establish and manage the petrol station, while due to the launch of the new policy, foreign enterprises are permitted to build and manage petrol station operations.