By Wang Yanlin | September 5, 2014, Friday |   Shanghai Daily

CHINA “sincerely” welcomes small foreign businesses which will benefit from stable policies and transparent laws, a forum hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai heard yesterday.

“We sincerely welcome foreign investors in advanced agriculture and green industries to come to China,” Qian Fangli, director-general of China Outsourcing Institute under the Ministry of Commerce, said at the 2014 AmCham Shanghai SME Conference titled “Small Business is Big Business.”

Qian said China has ensured stable foreign investment policies, transparent unified laws and regulations for domestic and foreign investors, and simplified the administrative procedures to make it easier for foreign investors.

Wesley Hsu, chairman of the board at Wesmax, said China has offered “tremendous” opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises.

“Five years ago, China’s business climate was still not mature enough for small businesses,” Hsu said. “People at that time only cared about big multinational companies, but now small companies are proliferating here as people come to know their value.”

Han Lin, senior vice president of Wells Fargo Bank’s National Association Shanghai Branch, said small companies would be able to get cheaper loans in the future due to keener competition and government’s policies supporting small businesses.

AmCham Shanghai set up an SME Center nearly two years ago in Shanghai to facilitate the growth of US small and medium-sized firms in China.

By the end of July, over 64,000 US firms with total investment of US$75.6 billion had registered in China, according to the Ministry of Commerce.