High level opening-up actively promotes (Mid year Economic Observation) development | Opening up | Economy

In the first half of the year, China's high-level opening-up to the outside world was resounding with determination——

On the coast of the South China Sea, the Hainan Free Trade Port has fully launched preparations for the island wide closure operation, and the first batch of 25 pressure testing projects are being vigorously promoted.

In the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, Guoyuan Port in Liangjiang New Area, Chongqing is bustling with 16 5000 ton berths arranged in sequence, and various equipment such as trucks, forklifts, and cranes operate in an orderly manner.

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The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a meeting on July 24th to analyze and study the current economic situation and deploy economic work for the second half of the year. The meeting emphasized the need to take multiple measures to stabilize the basic situation of foreign trade and investment. We need to increase international flights to ensure stable and smooth operation of China Europe freight trains.

Since the beginning of this year, various regions and departments have been promoting opening up to the outside world with greater courage and at a higher starting point, continuously gathering strong momentum for high-quality development. In the first half of the year, China's total import and export value of goods trade was 20.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.1%, demonstrating strong resilience; 24000 new foreign-invested enterprises were established, an increase of 35.7%; The investment in high-tech industries increased by 7.9%, accounting for an increase of 3.9 percentage points to 39.4%. Numerous executives from multinational corporations have come to China for inspection and are full of confidence in the prospects of China's economic development.

Actively taking the initiative to open up and solidify the foundation of foreign trade and investment

On June 29th, Merck announced an investment of approximately 70 million euros to expand its Nantong Life Science Center. This expansion will significantly increase production capacity, providing thousands of tons of high-purity reagents for quality control and testing to biopharmaceutical enterprises every year.

"For Merck Group, China is a strategically significant market, not only our second largest market globally, but also one of the fastest-growing markets." Ge Lihe, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck Group, said that China's economic strength and innovation potential are crucial for Merck Group to achieve its corporate development goals.

Since the beginning of this year, China's foreign trade has maintained growth, the absorption of foreign investment has been basically stable, and foreign investment cooperation has developed steadily. Stories of China and the world going in both directions have occasionally been heard.

At the Consumer Expo, over 3300 consumer boutique brands from 65 countries and regions participated in the exhibition; At the Canton Fair, on-site export transactions amounted to 21.69 billion US dollars; The China Development Forum 2023 Annual Meeting, Boao Forum for Asia 2023 Annual Meeting, and the 14th Summer Davos Forum will continue to be held... Opening up China to the world has attracted all sectors of the world to join hands with China for common development, helping to elevate the level of trade and investment cooperation to a new level.

Smooth the industrial and supply chains, and cultivate new growth points for foreign trade.

At the end of June, at Gansu International Land Port, 160 domestically produced Chery brand cars boarded the Tianma China Europe freight train to Central Asia. "While maintaining the development of the import and export of traditional commodities such as agricultural products, we are also actively exploring new highlights of trade." Li Zhengfu, the head of Jinchang Customs under Lanzhou Customs, said that there is a 102000 square meter storage yard in Wuwei Bonded Logistics Center, with sufficient parking space, and the logistics channel advantages of the "Tianma" China Europe Train, which has unique advantages in expanding automobile export business, will help more self owned brand cars to explore the "the Belt and Road" market.

Thanks to the increasingly perfect automobile industry chain and steadily improving supply capacity, as well as smooth trade channels, China's automobile exports have continued to grow rapidly. After exporting over 2 million vehicles in 2021 and 3 million vehicles in 2022, automobile enterprises exported 2.14 million vehicles in the first half of this year, a year-on-year increase of 75.7%. In the first half of the year, the total export of "new three types" products such as electric passenger vehicles, lithium batteries, and solar cells increased by 61.6%, driving an overall export growth of 1.8 percentage points. The green industry has abundant momentum.

Enhance the ability to serve enterprises and promote the landing of foreign-funded projects.

In April, the first phase of the Mars Pet Food Factory project was completed and accepted in the Nangang Industrial Zone of Tianjin Economic Development Zone. After the completion of the project, the annual production capacity will reach over 250000 tons, making it the largest modern pet food factory in Mars Asia.

It is reported that in order to ensure the timely acceptance of the project, the staff of the Planning and Construction Office of Nangang Industrial Zone have conducted multiple on-site inspections, tracked the project progress in real time, and explained the acceptance policy and process in detail to the enterprise. "We have felt that Tianjin has a warm and fast-paced business environment, and the project has received strong support from departments at all levels," said the person in charge of affairs for Mars Pet Nutrition China.

Since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Customs, and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade have continuously increased their service guarantee efforts, strengthened regular communication and exchange with foreign-funded enterprises and business associations, timely coordinated and solved difficulties in enterprise operation and project construction, and provided greater convenience for foreign investors to engage in trade and investment in China. Customs in various regions have successively introduced new measures to optimize the business environment, focusing on promoting smooth import and export logistics, facilitating cross-border trade, reducing enterprise burden and increasing efficiency, and promoting innovative development in foreign trade, so that enterprises can have more tangible sense of gain.

Pioneering reform and innovation, steadily expanding institutional opening up

On June 1st, Shanghai launched a pilot reform of integrating the "Certificate of Import of Goods" and "Inspection Form for Imported Motor Vehicles" for imported motor vehicles.

"We had a total of 1094 imported cars issued certificates today, but we didn't expect to receive all the certificates on the same day!" Xia Yang, the import manager of Jaguar Land Rover Investment Co., Ltd., said after receiving all the new versions of the "Goods Import Certificate". "The transformation from 'two certificates' to' one certificate 'can shorten the time for obtaining certificates by one to two days. The storage, management, logistics and other costs of imported cars will be greatly reduced due to the improvement of customs clearance efficiency."

Each region and department will deepen the high-level institutional opening up, continuously increase the reform efforts in key areas of the business environment, create a market-oriented, legal, and international business environment, fully utilize both domestic and international markets and resources, and add momentum to build a new development pattern and promote high-quality development.

Establish pilot projects and increase the openness of the modern service industry.

The service industry has become an important engine for China's opening-up to the outside world. At the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Commerce issued a comprehensive pilot plan for expanding the opening up of the service industry in six cities, including Shenyang, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and Chengdu.

On May 25th, Guangzhou held the "Guangzhou Shared Services" Service Industry Expansion and Opening up and the World Bay Area Service Industry Cooperation Roundtable, jointly exploring opportunities for cooperation in the service sector and promoting international cooperation in the service industry on a larger scale and wider scope.

"The multiple measures taken to expand the comprehensive pilot construction of Guangzhou's service industry opening up have provided support and guarantees for foreign-funded enterprises to take root in Guangzhou's development." Toshiya Fujino, Vice President of Hitachi Elevator Co., Ltd., gave an example to encourage intelligent equipment industry enterprises to expand value-added services, make convenient arrangements for the entry and exit of overseas talents and employment, all of which have provided great convenience for the development of enterprises, daily technical exchanges, and expert exchanges.

Implement the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with high quality and promote comprehensive, mutually beneficial, and high-level economic partnerships.

On June 2nd, RCEP officially came into effect for the Philippines. At this point, RCEP has fully entered into force for the 10 ASEAN countries and 15 signatory countries including Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.

"The implementation of RCEP in the Philippines has brought new opportunities for the company to consolidate and develop the Philippine market. Leveraging the price advantage brought by tariff reductions, coupled with the company's existing quality advantage, we are confident in further cooperation with Filipino customers and the development of new customers." Cai Xiaolin, Manager of the Foreign Trade Department of Zhejiang Xinhefa Lianbin Packaging Technology Co., Ltd., is full of confidence, and it is expected that the company can enjoy a tariff reduction of about 50000 yuan for exports to the Philippines throughout the year.

The head of the International Department of the Ministry of Commerce stated that RCEP's commitment to open up markets for goods, services, and investment, combined with high-level rules in various fields, will greatly promote the free flow of production factors such as raw materials, products, technology, talent, capital, information, and data in the region, promote the gradual formation of a more prosperous regional integration market, and promote larger scale, higher level, and deeper level of open cooperation among member countries.

Resolutely promoting openness, promoting reform and development through openness

Although there are less than 100 days left until the opening of the 6th China International Import Expo, global exhibitors are eagerly anticipating it. At present, more than 280 Fortune 500 and industry leading enterprises have registered to participate in the 6th CIIE, with a signed commercial exhibition area of over 330000 square meters.

Through the window of the CIIE, China has always been steadfast in expanding its opening up, sharing opportunities and developing together with countries around the world. Facing the future and accelerating the construction of a new development pattern, it is even more necessary for us to promote reform and development through opening up, with a focus on institutional opening up, deepen institutional and mechanism reforms in key areas of foreign exchange and cooperation such as investment, trade, finance, and innovation, improve supporting policies and measures, and actively take the initiative to elevate China's opening-up to a new level.

Integrate with international high standard economic and trade rules, and implement the strategy of upgrading free trade pilot zones.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the construction of the pilot free trade zone. The first negative list of foreign investment access, the first "single window" of international trade, the first batch of free trade accounts... As experimental fields for reform and opening up, many "firsts" have been practiced, explored, matured in free trade pilot zones over the past 10 years, and then replicated and promoted nationwide. At present, the pilot free trade zone has replicated and promoted 278 institutional innovation achievements nationwide.

Recently, the State Council issued the "Several Measures for Pilot Connection with International High Standards and Promoting Institutional Opening up in Conditional Free Trade Pilot Zones and Free Trade Ports", taking the lead in pilot connection with relevant international high standard economic and trade rules in Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin, Fujian, Beijing and other eligible free trade pilot zones and Hainan Free Trade Port, steadily expanding institutional opening up. Assistant Minister of Commerce Chen Chunjiang stated that one year after the pilot implementation of the "Several Measures", the Ministry of Commerce will organize an evaluation according to the deployment. Pilot measures that meet the conditions will be promoted to other free trade pilot zones and stress tests will be conducted on a larger scale.

Innovate measures to build a two-way open hub with global convergence power.

From encouraging the development of research and development centers and headquarters economy projects by foreign investment, to preparing for the promulgation of the Jiangsu Province Foreign Investment Regulations, Jiangsu has anchored the construction of a two-way open hub with global aggregation power, continuously enhancing its attractiveness and driving force for high-quality global resources.

"Next, Jiangsu will take institutional openness as the guide, continuously improve the quality and level of trade and investment cooperation, and accelerate the construction of an open and strong province." Chen Tao, Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Commerce, stated that it is necessary to accelerate the cultivation of new drivers of openness, attract high-level foreign investment to participate in strengthening, supplementing, and extending the supply chain, and actively develop foreign-funded headquarters and functional institutions. Steadily expanding institutional opening up, striving to take the lead in exploring and breaking through several key cutting-edge areas.

We will build a new development pattern around services, with a focus on institutional opening up and more proactive actions to promote high-level opening up to the outside world and develop a higher-level open economy. We will definitely win the initiative of economic development through opening up to the outside world, accelerate the shaping of new advantages in international competition and cooperation, and make greater contributions to promoting high-quality economic development.