China's measures target EU sanctions against Chinese firms: spokesman

China's export control measures target the European Union's wrongful sanctions against Chinese firms, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Monday.

China's Ministry of Commerce on Friday announced a decision to add 14 EU entities to its export control list to safeguard national security and interests and fulfill international non-proliferation obligations.

The measures were taken in response to the EU's moves to put 14 enterprises from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong under sanctions in its latest sanctions package against Russia, the ministry said.

"Let me stress that China’s measures are a response to the EU’s erroneous move of listing and sanctioning Chinese companies. The measures do not target any specific country," Lin said.

In the first half of this year, the vitality of business entities in China and the high-end development of the industrial structure have been further improved, delivering solid achievements in high-quality development, an official with the State Taxation Administration (STA) said on Tuesday.

Hu Jinglin, the STA commissioner, told a press conference that the number of tax-paying business entities has increased during the period. "Tax data showed that the vitality of business entities in China has further improved from January to June. The number of active tax-paying business entities that are operating normally in China rose 20.2 percent year on year and the number of tax declaration companies gained 10 percent year on year," said Hu.

Hu noted that high-tech and digital economy industries saw a surge in sales revenue during the same period.

"The high-end development of the industrial structure has been further advanced. The sales revenue of high-tech industries and core digital economy industries increased 15 percent and 8.7 percent year on year, respectively. And their share of the total enterprise sales revenue expanded 1.7 percentage points and 1.1 percentage points year on year, respectively. At the same time, the profits of high-tech manufacturing enterprises and digital product service enterprises surged 29.2 percent and 64.4 percent year on year, respectively," said the official.

China's foreign investment inflows and foreign trade exports continued to demonstrate strong resilience in the six months, Hu added.

"The stability of [China's] opening up to the world has been further enhanced. The number of foreign-funded tax-paying entities rose 10.9 percent year on year. The total profit declared by foreign-funded enterprises increased 4.5 percent year on year. The number of export tax rebates processed by the tax authorities for enterprises gained 7.7 percent year on year. These figures indicate that China's introduction of foreign investment and foreign trade exports continue to maintain strong resilience," he said.