An overview of the regulatory regime governing the telecoms sector in China and the regulation of foreign investment in this sector. This Note describes the distinction between basic telecoms services (BTS) and value-added telecoms services (VATS) and details the telecoms licensing requirements. It also introduces the corresponding preferential policies that apply in China's free trade zones (FTZs) and under the CEPA between China and each of the Hong Kong or Macau SAR.

Note: On 8 April 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued the Notice on Launching the Pilot Scheme for Expanding the Opening-Up of Value-Added Telecom Services to Foreign Investment, aiming to remove foreign ownership restrictions in certain VATS provided within domestic pilot areas (see Legal Update, MIIT Further Relaxes Foreign Investment Restrictions in Value-Added Telecom Services). This Note will be updated shortly.