In 2013, the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone introduced the first negative list for foreign investment access. After seven revisions, the number of specific management measures has been reduced from the initial 190 items to the current 27.

Meanwhile, the service sector has continued to open up, and the level of investment liberalization has constantly improved.

Over the past decade, the Shanghai FTZ has launched pioneering projects across 60 sectors such as automobile manufacturing, financial services, medical services, tourism services, value-added telecommunications, testing certification, and credit rating. 

The Shanghai FTZ has accumulated nearly $60 billion in actual foreign investment, making it a gateway for foreign capital entering China.

A negative list is a universally accepted method for managing foreign investments in a country. It is a list of sectors in which a country restricts or bans foreign capital inflow or sets limits on the percentage of foreign capital.

This model is at the core of reforms to the investment management system, and is also a signature institutional innovation of the FTZ. It plays a significant role in propelling a new round of high-level opening-up and creating a new structure for an open economy.

Over the past decade, 4,669 projects have been implemented in the Shanghai FTZ with the aim of expanding openness.