1. Establish Xiamen's Needs for Your Products or Services(see Encouraged Investment Areas)
2. Determine the form of investment and type of funding
3. Choose a location for your venture (see major investment zones)
4. Determine which authority is responsible for approving your venture
5. Collect the necessary documents
6. See if direct registration is possible
7. Submit the Initial Application Documents to the Relevant Authorities
8. If Approved, Commence process of industrial and commercial registration
9. Register with the Customs office
10. Apply for utilities (electricity, water, communications)

Foreign investors can invest in the following forms:

1. to establish wholly foreign-owned enterprises, sino-foreign joint ventures and cooperative ventures;
2. to purchase the shares of the existing enterprises;
3. to contract for or lease enterprises;
4. to develop single real estate projects;
5. to acquire land-use rights for the development and management of tracts of land.
6. to conduct processing with supplied materials and samples and assembling with supplied parts and compensation trade.
7. other forms permitted by State's laws.

1. Machinery and equipment, office utilities, means of transport, etc., imported for the sole use of foreign-funded enterprises;
2. cash foreign exchanges remitted or brought in from abroad;
3. the appraised industrial property and proprietary technologies essential to the production of the foreign-funded enterprises;
4. the lawful profits, dividends, royalties arising from China and the investment rebates in RMB.

1. necessary to the production of foreign-funded enterprises;
2. either China cannot produce or otherwise charged too high or lacking guarantee in technical performance or delivery;
3. the appraisal shall not be higher than the prices of the identical merchandise on the then international markets.

1. they can produce new products urgently needed in China or marketable export products;
2. they can remarkably improve the performance, quality of the existing products and upgrade the productivity;
3. they can considerably economize on the existing materials and power.

The Examining and Approving Authorities
for Foreign Funded Enterprises

For contact information of all relevant administrative offices, please see the Major Administrative Offices page.

1. The examining and approving authority and overall management department for the foreign-funded enterprises in Xiamen is Xiamen Foreign Investment Executive Committee (FIEC). The Committee can examine and approve any foreign-funded projects in Xiamen with investment below US $ 30 million inclusive.

2. The foreign-funded productive or real estate projects and the enterprise establishment in Tong'an County, Xinglin and Jimei Districts, with investment below US $ 30 million inclusive can be examined and approved by the relevant county or district governments.

3. The foreign-funded productive projects and the enterprise establishment in Siming, Huli and Kaiyuan Districts with investment below US $ 10 million inclusive can be examined and approved by the respective district governments.

4. The foreign-funded projects in Haicang and Xiangyu Free Trade Zone can be examined and approved by the local competent authorities.

5. The foreign-funded projects with imported raw materials or import or export of products concerned with the State's import and export quotas or licenses, or with investments above US $ 30 million shall be referred to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC) for examination and approval, by XFIEC upon verification.

1. Project applications by the Chinese partners (not applicable to the wholly foreign-owned enterprises.)
2. Investment applications (exclusive to the wholly foreign-owned enterprises.)
3. Contracts (exempted for the wholly foreign-owned enterprises) and Articles of Association for the foreign-funded enterprises.
4. Feasibility Study Report for the establishment of foreign-funded enterprises.
5. Name lists of Board of Directors for the foreign-funded enterprises (exempted for the single investors investing in personal names).
6. Duplicate copies of valid business licenses or other certificates for the business operation,issued by the governments of the countries or regions where investors reside; duplicate copies of identity cards for investors investing in personal names.
7. Credit status certificates issued by banks where investors open accounts in the country where they reside.
8. Contracts for lease or purchase of sites for production or operation of foreign-funded enterprises, or contracts for land use signed with Land Administrations at municipal, county or district levels.
9. Lists of major imported machinery and equipment, office utilities and means of transport for the sole use of foreign-funded enterprises (description, type, quantity, unit price, gross value ) .
10. Other supplementary documents deemed necessary by the examining and approving departments.

For contact information of all relevant administrative offices, please see the Major Administrative Offices page.

Overseas investors investing in the encouraged projects, within the competence of the municipal examining and approving authorities can go direct to the municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce or the respective county or district administrations for registration, so long as the projects are not concerned with import and export licenses or quota restriction and they can maintain the balance of foreign exchange and the factories are set up in the standard factories premises or in the idle factory premises of the existing enterprises for expanded production without any increases or expansion of the utilities. The administrative departments for industry and commerce shall, within 15 days make decisions on approval or disapproval. All the registered projects are regarded as approved and the relating formalities shall be allowed to be gone through.

Investors or trustees can inform the relevant examining and approving authorities of their investment intent and gain the application forms, which shall be submitted to the authorities for examination and approval after being filled out in five duplicate copies when the conditions for production are ensured. If rejected, the examining and approving authorities shall, within seven days, notify the applicants of the comments and reasons; otherwise, the notice of examination and verification shall then be issued and the names of the enterprises be registered. Upon the receipt of the notice, the investors or trustees can submit complete sets of application documents (see "Main Documents to be Submitted for the Establishment of Foreign-Funded Enterprises" ) to the examining and approving authorities for the establishment of foreign-funded enterprises.

For contact information of all relevant administrative offices, please see the Major Administrative Offices page.

a. If approved, all the examining and approving authorities shall, within 7 working days after the receipt of and verification on the complete application documents of investors, issue the official documents to approve the establishment of the companies.

b. The investors shall, within thirty days after the receipt of the approving documents and certificates, register with the municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce and acquire the business licenses.

c. The investors can then apply to the municipal Pubic Security Bureau for the engraving of the seals of the enterprises.

d. The investors can then open bank accounts, register with Customs and taxation authorities, etc.

e. After the Customs registration, the investors can then arrange for the import and installation of equipment, recruitment of employees and preparations for operation and production. If the projects do not involve any land application for construction of new factory premises; otherwise they shall present the designing plans to the municipal Administration of Urban Planning for the land-use permits for construction, then go through other formalities with Land Administration, such as the approving documents, the red-line prints and permits of land use, etc. After the completion of the working drawings, they can apply to the municipal Construction Commission for project designing permits and construction permits, then start up the construction. After the projects have been completed and accepted they can acquire the certificates for land use from the Land Administration.