Last week, we blogged that SAFE would release new rules governing Chinese residents and foreign capital in early Novemeber…well, they jumped the gun…

Shanghai Daily reports on Circular No. 75’s new guidelines:

CHINA’S foreign exchange regulator has relaxed controls on Chinese residents and companies seeking funds from overseas as it hopes to boost the development of high-tech entities and venture capital firms. Residents and companies will be allowed to set up companies abroad, which the regulator called as special-purpose entities, to access the overseas capital markets. The new rule, to take effect from the beginning of November, requires the overseas firms to transfer income back to China within 180 days of them making a profit.

So why is Circular No. 75 an improvement? Well, a couple things: (1) It drops all references to “approval” as per Circulars 11 and 29; Circular No. 75 only refers to “registration” and (2) No valuation required of domestic assets (other than for State-owned
assets, which has long been the position)…