No special hurdle for Chinese deals, Locke says
Locke's comments yesterday were in response to concern expressed by mainland officials about what they deem as unfair foreign investment policies in the US after a few high-profile acquisitions proposed by state-owned enterprises failed to pass the US national security review.
Chinese firms have no special hurdle to surmount in acquiring assets in the United States, said Gary Locke, the US ambassador to China.
Neither was there a different level of scrutiny applied to deals involving state-owned enterprises from that in the case of privately owned companies, he said.
Locke's comments yesterday were in response to concern expressed by mainland officials about what they deem as unfair foreign investment policies in the US after a few high-profile acquisitions proposed by state-owned enterprises failed to pass the US national security review.
Speaking at the forum on Monday, China International Capital Corp chairman Jin Liqun said Chinese firms had "honest objectives" in their efforts to acquire overseas assets, but political suspicions remained the biggest barrier to getting deals done.
Locke, apparently aiming to ease such concerns, told an international audience at Tsinghua University that one of his top priorities as ambassador was promoting and facilitating Chinese investments in the US.
"A vast majority of foreign investments from all countries, including China, do not raise national security concerns," he said.
