Even privately owned enterprises and foreign joint ventures depend on good relations with government officials to enter and stay in a certain line of business.
Beijing also promised to lower duties on capital goods imported by foreign joint ventures, acknowledging that the previous removal of tax breaks had hurt investment.
For this and other reasons, foreign joint ventures, despite their number, accounted for only six percent of annual life insurance premiums paid in China in 2010.
Dozens of foreign businesses and joint ventures are closing under pressure from regulators.
They will find themselves well placed on graduation day to land lucrative jobs with the foreign companies and joint ventures that tend to concentrate in the big cities.
So far, most of the models produced have come from joint ventures with foreign manufacturers like General Motors and Volkswagen.
Vietnam's 11 car companies, most of them joint ventures with foreign firms, sold a total of only 5, 000 vehicles in 1998.
The interests of Brazilian travellers might be better served if the airlines rationalised their international routes and sought joint ventures with foreign airlines instead.
In addition, the company owns about 2.5% of Iridium, a satellite-telecoms venture led by Motorola, and shares in several lucrative natural-resource joint ventures with foreign firms.
But they also said that China is catching up fast in other areas of civil and military aviation technology, thanks in large part to technology transferred by foreign aerospace companies in Chinese joint ventures.
Meanwhile, those very same partners are designing and producing their own models independently of their joint ventures with the foreign companies.
Foreign banks need to be in joint ventures to access much of the trading in China, while in Singapore, for instance, they dominate more than 50% of the market's trade.
Despite his early setback in the tyre business, Mr Sabanci has made a speciality of joint-ventures with foreign partners, striking 17 since 1985 in sectors as diverse as cars and cigarettes.
Many foreign investors in China have opted for joint ventures with local firms.
Rather than make fresh acquisitions, says Mr Butters, foreign investors are more likely to form joint ventures, as Michelin has done with Tigar, a local tyre maker.
Under the new agreement, Chinese companies will own at least 51% of the joint ventures, and the foreign joint venture partners will need to provide key areas of technology to even have minority ownership.
Next come the joint ventures between private (often foreign) companies and Chinese state-backed entities.
They also have expanded brokerages' businesses and let foreign companies boost their presence in local securities joint ventures among other measures.
WSJ: China May Give Foreign Pension Funds New Investment Opportunities
Foreign and Chinese firms that wanted to enter joint ventures had no way of gauging the counterparty risk of potential partners.
Foreign oil firms must operate as minority partners in joint ventures with it.
Whatever the globalized future of Japanese corporations, joint ventures or deep strategic alliances with foreign companies are unlikely to become a major feature.
FORBES: The VW-Suzuki Split and Japanese Corporate Globalization
Indonesia, which allows 49% foreign stakes in listed institutions and 85% in joint ventures, is to enact laws lifting the limits, says central banker Achman.
Foreign retailers would be able to take majority stakes in joint ventures, following a decision by Cabinet ministers.
The company operates 11 joint ventures in China and two wholly owned foreign enterprises, and counts with more than 35, 000 employees.
FORBES: China Auto Sales: GM Sold One Car Every 12 Seconds In 2011
Foreign banks would be permitted to own 80% of joint ventures.
FORBES: Standard Chartered First In Line As Myanmar Mulls Foreign Bank Licenses
The cabinet of the Congress party-led coalition agreed last week to allow foreign multibrand retailers to own up to 51% of joint ventures and open supermarkets in India.
Cummins is the largest foreign investor in China's diesel-engine industry, with seven joint ventures.
Ford and its joint ventures sold 35% more cars in China in September compared to the previous year as foreign automakers continue to gain at the expense of Japanese automakers.
Foreign businesses have been waiting for months for permission to transfer abroad hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from joint ventures that are sitting in local banks.
Changing the constitution, which is necessary to allow foreign companies to take a stake in the country's ample hydrocarbon reserves and for Pemex to enter into joint ventures, requires a two-thirds majority vote in Congress.
应用推荐