Daring to be the first in the world - China's free trade zone construction delivers impressive "transcripts", sharpening a sword in ten years. China | Free Trade Zone | Transcript
Beijing, August 2 (Xinhua) - Since the official establishment of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone in September 2013, the construction of China's pilot free trade zone has gone through ten years. Over the past decade, China has formed a "wild goose formation" with 21 pilot free trade zones and Hainan Free Trade Port, building a reform and opening up innovation pattern covering the east, west, north, south, and central regions.
Ten years of hard work and development, Butterfly Transformation is moving towards the future. Standing at a new historical starting point, the construction of free trade zones has ushered in new opportunities and will continue to inject surging vitality into the high-quality development of the Chinese economy.
At the automated container terminal of Qinzhou Port in Guangxi, unmanned vehicles are transporting containers. Photo by Zhang Ailin, journalist from Xinhua News Agency
Attracting Foreign Investment as a New Highland
Last October, Yabao Company of the United States invested 200 million US dollars to establish Guangxi Yabao Lithium Industry Co., Ltd. in the Qinzhou Port area of Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone. It completed the production of 2022 tons of lithium hydroxide that year, achieving a total industrial output value of 1 billion yuan and paying various taxes of 17 million yuan.
When it comes to the reasons for investing in Qinzhou, Zou Ling, the Production and Operation Director of Guangxi Yabao Lithium Industry Co., Ltd., said that there are opportunities for the construction of the Western Land Sea New Channel and the Peace Land Canal here. Under the radiation of the integrated reform of sea rail intermodal transportation in the pilot free trade zone, foreign trade goods can be shipped and exported to Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and other places without changing containers at the Beibu Gulf Port, greatly facilitating the company's expansion into overseas markets such as ASEAN.
In addition, the pilot free trade zone provides strong support to settled enterprises in areas such as taxation, foreign investment, and talent. "Helped us implement employee accommodation issues within a day and solved the company's concerns," said Zou Ling.
According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, the pilot free trade zone has made positive contributions to the development of foreign trade and investment. In 2022, 21 pilot free trade zones achieved a total import and export volume of 7.5 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.5%, accounting for 17.8% of the national total; The actual use of foreign investment exceeds 220 billion yuan, accounting for 18.1% of the national total.
In the first half of this year, the actual use of foreign investment in 21 pilot free trade zones continued to steadily increase, with the actual use of foreign investment in high-tech industries increasing by 21.2% year-on-year. Yang Tao, Director of the Comprehensive Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said, "The pilot free trade zone has attracted 18.4% of the country's foreign investment with less than 4% of its land area."
This is a transportation vehicle for customs clearance at the Friendship Pass Port in Pingxiang, Guangxi. Photo by Yang Chi, journalist from Xinhua News Agency
Leading the way in institutional innovation
The leapfrog development of the pilot free trade zone cannot be separated from the support of institutional innovation. Over the past decade, China's pilot free trade zones have accumulated 278 institutional innovation achievements, covering various fields such as investment facilitation, trade facilitation, financial openness and innovation, and in-process and post event supervision.
The "2022-2023 China Pilot Free Trade Zone Institutional Innovation Index" recently released by the Comprehensive Research Institute of Sun Yat sen University's Free Trade Zone shows that the overall average score of the institutional innovation index for 54 free trade zones in China is 78.03 points, an increase from 76.7 points last year.
Over the past decade, free trade pilot zones in various regions have carried forward the spirit of "bold exploration, bold experimentation, and independent reform", continuously innovated measures, and continuously improved the business environment. In 2013, the Shanghai Free Trade Zone launched China's first negative list of foreign investment in pilot free trade zones. Quickly, the practice of negative lists spread to all free trade zones and the whole country, and continued to be reduced. Starting from January 1, 2022, the negative list of foreign investment access in the new version of the pilot free trade zone will be further reduced to 27 items, with a reduction ratio of 10%. Among them, the manufacturing industry items have been cleared to zero.
At present, the institutional innovation of China's pilot free trade zones is steadily advancing. In the Chongzuo area of Guangxi Free Trade Zone, the rapid development of mutual trade among border residents has not only increased their income but also reduced the procurement costs of enterprises; In the Kunming area of Yunnan Free Trade Zone, the "Lai Tao Dian" platform launched in 2020 makes it as convenient for enterprises to purchase electricity as shopping on e-commerce platforms, effectively breaking the "hard threshold" for small and medium-sized enterprises to enter the market for transactions
Associate Professor Li Xiaofu from East China University of Political Science and Law said that from the initial "fragmented" reform and innovation to today's institutional integration innovation, the free trade pilot zone has always played an important role in promoting institutional opening up, daring to try and take the lead.
On May 11th, the spraying operator polished and repainted the Airbus A350-900 wide body aircraft. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Liyun
The Road to Differentiated Development
During the investigation, the reporter found that each pilot free trade zone has different strategic goals and positioning based on its own location characteristics. Relying on Hong Kong and Macao, serving the mainland, and facing the world, the Guangdong Pilot Free Trade Zone takes it as its responsibility to build a demonstration zone for deep cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao; Strengthening cooperation between Fujian and Taiwan has become a prominent feature of the Fujian Pilot Free Trade Zone; High quality development of marine economy is the differentiated exploration task of Shandong Pilot Free Trade Zone
At present, Hainan Free Trade Port is conducting pilot projects to connect with international high standard economic and trade agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, which will accumulate favorable conditions for China to participate in the formulation of international economic and trade rules.
Lin Zhigang, deputy director of the Kunming Area Management Committee of Yunnan Pilot Free Trade Zone, said that Yunnan Pilot Free Trade Zone will give play to its regional advantages of "border+cross-border", seize the three major opportunities of the opening of the China Laos railway, the entry into force of the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement, and the trusteeship of Kunming Mohan, and actively promote the development of cross-border flow of people, logistics, and capital while undertaking the heavy task of national industrial transfer of "barrage" and "reservoir", so as to accumulate experience for the country to explore the innovative mode of foreign cooperation in the pilot free trade zone.
The Guangxi Pilot Free Trade Zone is based on the advantages of both coastal and border areas, highlighting border openness and land sea linkage, and building a highland of China ASEAN open cooperation. In the future, we will accelerate the construction of cross-border industrial and supply chains for ASEAN, including electronic information, new energy vehicles, chemical new materials, processing of ASEAN characteristic products, and processing of traditional Chinese medicine, to promote the expansion and improvement of cross-border trade.
"The main raw material of the company, Liangfen Grass, needs to be imported from Vietnam. It is precisely because Pingxiang has a geographical advantage adjacent to Vietnam that we settled here and grew together with the Chongzuo Free Trade Zone as soon as it was established." Hu Jianhong, General Manager of Guangxi Pingxiang Shenghetang Health Food Co., Ltd., said, "Boarding the high-speed train of the Free Trade Zone, there will be better development in the future."
