China pledges "significant" market opening for foreign investors

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will "significantly" widen market access for foreign investors, state radio on Wednesday quoted vice premier Wang Yang as saying, following a recent move to raise foreign ownership limits in local financial firms.

"China's development in the past has benefited from opening and it's more necessary to expand openness as we take the road of high quality development driven by innovations," Wang told a business forum in the southern city of Guangzhou.

"We will significantly expand market access and speed up drafting a timetable and roadmap for opening key sectors," he said.

China will "actively and effectively" attract foreign investment, protect legal rights and interests of foreign investors and create an environment for fair competition, he said.

At a twice-a-decade Communist Party congress in October, President Xi Jinping called for "making new ground in pursuing opening up on all fronts", and has pledged to allow greater access to China's markets for foreign investors.

In November, China said it would raise foreign ownership limits in domestic financial firms, a long-anticipated step that grants greater access to overseas investors in the Asian giant's financial services market.

China has been accused of unfairly subsidising exports and of restricting foreign access to its domestic market, with U.S. President Donald Trump often complaining of the massive trade surplus China runs with the United States.

(Reporting by China monitoring desk and Kevin Yao; Editing by Nick Macfie)