Creating a "Special" Free Trade Zone 【 10th Anniversary of Free Trade Zone · National Visit ⑤ 】, Beijing: Submit an answer sheet

Editor's note:

In September 2013, the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone was officially established. Since then, there have been 21 pilot free trade zones in China, basically forming a reform and opening up innovation pattern covering the east, west, north, south, and central regions.

Over the past decade, the pilot free trade zone, which accounts for less than 4% of the country's land area, has contributed more than one sixth of the country's total import and export value and total foreign investment absorption, providing strong support for China to cultivate new drivers of economic development and consolidate new advantages in international competition; At the same time, it has also played a leading role in institutional innovation, created a vivid model of open development, promoted the in-depth implementation of major strategies, and played an important role in China's reform and opening up process.

In the past few months, reporters from Liberation Daily and Shangguan News have visited six pilot free trade zones in Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin, Beijing, Hubei, Zhejiang, and Hainan Free Trade Port to visit enterprises, parks, and government agencies. They have had in-depth exchanges with local party and government officials, as well as experts from universities, and felt the changes brought by the national free trade strategy to cities.

Opening the government work report of Beijing, the term "two districts" is frequently mentioned. What is "Two Zones"?

In September 2020, the State Council issued the "Overall Plan for China's Pilot Free Trade Zone" and the "Work Plan for Deepening the Comprehensive Pilot Construction of Beijing's New Round of Service Industry Opening up and National Service Industry Opening up Comprehensive Demonstration Zone". The Beijing Free Trade Zone was officially established, and the expansion of Beijing's service industry opening up was officially upgraded from a "pilot" to a "demonstration zone".

Beijing, which has two zones, has become the only comprehensive demonstration zone in China to expand and open up the service industry in addition to the free trade zone. The Beijing Free Trade Zone is unique because of its uniqueness, but its uniqueness goes beyond that.

A "special" free trade zone

Where is the free trade zone in Beijing?

In places such as the Capital Airport in Shunyi, the International Trade CBD in Chaoyang, Zhongguancun in Haidian, and the Life Science Park in Changping, if you pay a little attention, you can see the plaques of the "China Pilot Free Trade Zone", but they are not connected like other free trade zones.

Why did such a scene occur?

According to the overall plan of the China Pilot Free Trade Zone, the Beijing Free Trade Zone covers three areas: scientific and technological innovation, international business services, and high-end industries, with a total area of 119.68 square kilometers. Unlike other free trade zones that belong to the same administrative region, the three major zones of Beijing Free Trade Zone include seven clusters——

The 31.85 square kilometer science and technology innovation area includes the Haidian and Changping clusters; The 48.34 square kilometer international business service area includes the Shunyi, Chaoyang, and Tongzhou clusters; The 39.49 square kilometer high-end industrial area includes the Daxing and Yizhuang clusters. This setting is conducive to amplifying the spillover effects of institutional innovation, industrial development, and factor agglomeration in the pilot free trade zone, achieving industry city integration in a larger space, and driving high-quality development in a larger region.

Entering the Life Science Park of Changping Cluster, the third phase of construction is in full swing. "In our Life Science Park, the first and second phases lacked some supporting facilities due to early planning. However, the third phase built after the establishment of the Free Trade Zone added a batch of residential, educational, commercial and other facilities, greatly reducing the proportion of separation of occupation and residence for employees in the park." The staff of the "Two Zones" office in Changping District introduced.

At the end of July, with the successful holding of the 2023 Gaobo Science Forum in Changping District, Gaobo Hospital was also officially completed and put into use. Its vice president, Zhu Shaohua, has high hopes for future work and life: "It's a pity not to move here as it is so good now."

Industry insiders believe that although the Beijing Free Trade Zone is young, its more avant-garde development model may give Beijing an advantage in the future.

Grasp the "Three Major Characteristics"

Since China's first pilot free trade zone was established in Shanghai, the number of pilot free trade zones in China has increased to 21 over the past 10 years, covering all parts of the country.

In the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region, the free trade zones of Tianjin and Hebei were established earlier than Beijing. Therefore, after the establishment of the Beijing Free Trade Zone, there are always some questions floating over the three major areas: "How can the Beijing Free Trade Zone develop its own characteristics?"

In fact, before its establishment, the country had given the Beijing Free Trade Zone a clear positioning at the China International Fair for Trade in Services, with technological innovation, open service industry, and digital economy as its main features.

The relevant person in charge of Beijing also stated at the press conference of the Free Trade Zone that the Free Trade Zone has a certain geographical spatial range, which is conducive to opening up pressure testing and risk control during the process of opening up to the outside world. After combining with the demonstration zone for expanding the opening up of the service industry, it is conducive to forming an open pattern with complementary advantages and positive interaction.

Overlay of "Two Zones"

Faced with the tasks assigned by the state, the Beijing Free Trade Zone has been conscientiously submitting an answer sheet for the past three years. Up to now, Beijing has proposed nearly 90 pioneering and breakthrough open innovation policy measures in seven major areas, including promoting investment and trade liberalization and facilitation, deepening financial openness and innovation, effectively promoting the development of characteristic industries in various clusters within the free trade zone——

In the first half of 2023, the innovation momentum of the Haidian cluster was strong, with over 60% of enterprises carrying out research and development innovation activities, and the R&D investment intensity exceeded 13%, ranking first among all clusters; The Changping cluster continues to make efforts in the field of medicine and health, with a research and development investment intensity of over 20% in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry; The Chaoyang cluster has outstanding advantages in foreign-funded enterprises, with the number of foreign-funded enterprises above designated size and the growth rate of operating revenue leading among all clusters; The cultural tourism industry in Tongzhou has rapidly recovered, and the operating revenue of travel agencies above designated size has doubled year-on-year; Capital Airport and Daxing Airport have driven the development of the airport economy. The total import and export volume of goods in the Shunyi cluster accounts for over 40% of the free trade pilot zone, an increase of 8.5 percentage points from 2022. The operating income of enterprises above the designated size in the Daxing cluster has increased by nearly three times; The information service industry and automobile manufacturing industry above the scale of the Yizhuang cluster have achieved double-digit growth in revenue

To support regional integration

Since March this year, with the acceleration of the construction of the "Tongzhou+North Three Counties" demonstration zone, the coordinated development of Beijing Tianjin Hebei has accelerated, and the free trade zones in the three regions are no exception.

"The synergy of the three free trade zones is mainly steadily advancing through the reform of government services, hoping to promote major reforms through small incisions," said Hu Jiulong, Deputy Director of the Beijing Urban Deputy Center Management Committee.

A few months ago, in the government service center hall of Xiong'an New Area, Feng Yu, the administrative director of Hebei Xiong'an Fangyuan Technology Co., Ltd., applied for the business license of the company's Beijing branch through the "Free Trade Office" window. He couldn't help but exclaim, "It's so convenient!" This also became the first business since the "Free Trade Office" window of the Beijing Hebei government service was launched on April 18th.

The Beijing Hebei Free Trade Connect has innovated in three aspects: handling concept, handling items, and handling methods: the handling concept has changed from "putting things at the center" to "putting people at the center", providing a more humane government service environment for personalized issues of enterprises and the masses; The handling of matters has changed from a "order by order" approach to a "negative list" approach, allowing for cross regional and indiscriminate handling of all matters except for confidential matters; The processing method has changed from "acceptance oriented" to "approval oriented", which has accelerated the efficiency of approval and effectively solved the problem of only being able to accept but not handle.

At present, the four areas of Hebei Pilot Free Trade Zone, relying on the integrated comprehensive acceptance platform of Beijing Urban Sub center, have achieved nearly 3500 cross regional and indiscriminate handling of government service matters in Beijing and Tongzhou District.

Beijing CBD area

In the Beijing CBD, about 25 kilometers away from the sub center of Beijing, the Beijing Free Trade Zone has also opened a window for the Tianjin Free Trade Zone.

In mid June, the Beijing CBD Management Committee, in collaboration with Tianjin Port Co., Ltd. and Beijing Chaoyang Customs, established the "Beijing CBD Tianjin Port Beijing Tianjin Collaborative Port Service Center" at the Beijing CBD Investment Service Center. In this new service center, enterprises can handle comprehensive services such as port warehousing, transportation, and agency in a one-stop manner, obtain policy interpretation, port logistics service information consultation and question answering, find various logistics and financial service docking channels, and provide professional, customized, and full process logistics services.

The relevant person in charge of Chaoyang District, Beijing believes that promoting collaboration within the Beijing Tianjin Hebei Free Trade Zone will help accelerate institutional innovation and the replication and promotion of pilot experience, and deepen industrial cooperation based on the resource advantages of the three regions.

Reform and innovation are always on the way

"Although the previously established free trade zones have formed a number of replicable and promotable cases, the reform and innovation of free trade zones in some segmented industries are far from over," said Bai Ming, a member of the Degree Committee of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce.

These days, Gaobo Hospital, whose main project has been completed for more than half a year, is intensifying efforts to carry out medical equipment commissioning, medical process drills, and other work, making final preparations for its operation within the year. Prior to this, Gaobo Hospital also encountered difficulties that required institutional innovation, such as the lengthy process of obtaining registration permits for large medical equipment.

However, after the busy work of the "Two Districts" Office and relevant departments in Changping District, the import of medical equipment into Gaobo Hospital only requires registration to obtain a license, accelerating the construction of the hospital.

Outpatient Room of Gaobo Hospital

At present, leveraging the advantages of the Changping group, Gaobo Medical Group has registered three companies engaged in clinical translation and application, hospital management services, and neuroscience business in the Life Science Park, and closely collaborates with upstream and downstream enterprises such as biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, and medical laboratories in the park to continuously promote the research and application of new therapies, drugs, and devices.

"In the Free Trade Zone, many processes have been simplified, which is very good. However, there are still many problems that need to be solved." Zhu Shaohua said that as a research hospital characterized by "small outpatient service and large scientific research", after its opening, it also needs a white list system for imported drugs and consumables that have been listed abroad but not listed domestically, so as to promote the research and development of new drugs in Beijing to speed up their listing.

Enterprises have demands, and the work of the "two districts" of each group has new goals. "We are willing to innovate in serving enterprises," said the staff of the "Two Districts" office in Changping District.

At the end of June, the Ministry of Commerce issued the "Key Work List for Pilot Free Trade Zones", which made 164 specific arrangements for the work priorities of 20 free trade zones in China in the next three years. Beijing Free Trade Zone has received 10 items.

Among the 10 key tasks, the first task has attracted widespread attention in the industry - Beijing aims to promote the construction of a digital trade port in the field of data economy, explore and improve the rules and institutional systems for cross-border data flow and data circulation. At the same time, we will establish a high standard Beijing International Big Data Exchange, build a digital ecological incubation platform, promote the construction of high-level autonomous driving demonstration zones, and create a global benchmark for the digital economy.

The economic community believes that in ten years, the digital economy will penetrate everything, and Beijing also has ambitious plans to build a global benchmark city for the digital economy. Over the past two years, Beijing has consolidated and expanded its development advantages in the field of digital economy. As of the end of 2022, the added value of digital economy has accounted for about 42% of Beijing's GDP.

Autonomous vehicles driving in the demonstration area of autonomous driving in Daxing District

Less than a week after the list was issued, Beijing has made a new move in the field of digital economy - releasing the first classification and grading management rules for data in autonomous driving demonstration zones. The relevant person in charge of the Beijing Autonomous Driving Office stated that the detailed rules have comprehensively clarified their own data assets, established data classification rules, refined relevant provisions of the National Data Security Law, implemented protection measures throughout the entire lifecycle of data circulation, and gradually consolidated the responsibility of enterprise data governance.

Chinese people always plan before taking action. The Beijing Free Trade Zone was established the latest, but it also provides a clearer understanding of the development characteristics of major free trade zones across the country, and selects special tracks suitable for its own development - technological innovation, service industry openness, and digital economy. Industry insiders believe that if the Beijing Free Trade Zone can go all the way on these three tracks, it can still become the most "special" free trade zone in today's world where two-thirds of provinces and cities have free trade zones.