A Comparative Analysis Of The Negative List Between Developed And Developing Countries And Its Reference To China

In recent years,the negative list model has been used by more and more countries in bilateral investment agreements(BIT)and free trade agreements(FTA).The negative list model has the characteristics of higher openness and more transparent investment policies.It is an important embodiment of high-level international investment rules.Since 2013,China has started to try out the foreign investment management system of pre-admission national treatment plus negative list mode in China.In 2020,China first tried to adopt the negative list model in the regional comprehensive partnership agreement(RCEP).There are great differences in the level of economic development and system construction between developed and developing countries,and the setting of their negative list is also quite different.In this context,in-depth study and comparison of the negative list of developed and developing countries has important reference significance for China to improve the negative list system of foreign capital management.This paper selects the negative list texts of seven developed countries and seven developing countries as the research samples,arranges the industries targeted by the non-conforming measures in the negative list with the ISIC quartile industry code as the statistical caliber,and quantitatively measures the restriction intensity based on the specific description of the non-conforming measures in the negative list,Thus,the text information of the negative list is transformed into standardized quantitative data.On this basis,this paper constructs a series of quantitative indicators,describes the basic characteristics of national negative lists from the aspects of the scope,intensity and distribution of non-conforming measures,and analyzes the differences between developed and developing countries.By comparing the negative lists of developed and developing countries,this paper systematically summarizes the international experience of negative list setting and the differences between the two types of countries,and puts forward effective suggestions for the improvement of China’s negative list text.This paper finds that:(1)the negative list of developed countries has a complete form of three annexes,and its industry restriction scope is small and the restriction intensity is low.Some developing countries have not adopted the negative list in the form of Annex III,which has a wide range of industry restrictions and high intensity;(2)Due to differences in national conditions,developed countries and developing countries do not have the same choice of industries in the negative list,but both include basic industries related to the national economy and the people’s livelihood and sensitive industries related to national security;(3)In terms of the distribution of inconsistent provisions,Annex I and Annex II both use six provisions other than cross-border trade,and Annex III mainly uses non discriminatory treatment provisions,market access provisions and cross-border trade provisions;(4)The distribution of industries that do not comply with the provisions of the measures shows strong similarity in the key industries generally restricted by various countries,but in the marginal industries with restrictions only in individual countries,the distribution of the provisions involved in the non-compliance measures varies greatly from country to country.Based on the above conclusions,by comparing the negative list of the above countries with China’s negative list in RCEP,this paper puts forward the following suggestions for China to improve the negative list text: first,in the follow-up negative list model international economic and trade agreements,China should try to adopt the negative list in the form of three annexes,Make rational use of the reserved measures in Annex II and the restrictive measures specifically for the financial service industry in Annex III;Secondly,the standard industry classification should be used as far as possible to express the industries targeted by the inconsistent measures;Third,we should enhance the intensity of restrictions in some industries,make more use of non access measures involving provisions other than national treatment provisions,and improve the policy transparency of investment restrictions.