Pilot free trade zones across the country will further deepen cooperation and exchange, form a goose formation pattern, and achieve fruitful exploration results

Since the establishment of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, what breakthrough achievements have been made in the construction of China's pilot free trade zone over the past decade? What explorations have been carried out in various free trade zones based on their respective realities? How can free trade zones in different regions better cooperate and progress together under the strategy of upgrading free trade pilot zones in the future?

On September 20th, at the Cooperation Sub Forum of the 10th Anniversary Theme Forum of China Pilot Free Trade Zone Construction, relevant leaders from the Ministry of Commerce, Beijing, Shandong, Guangdong, Hainan, Sichuan, and Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone Lingang New Area delivered keynote speeches, sharing and exploring the theme of "better serving the new development pattern with the linkage development of the pilot free trade zone", focusing on deepening cooperation and exchange in the pilot free trade zone, accelerating the promotion of linkage development, and forming a joint development force.

Abundant achievements in the construction of free trade zones and free trade ports

At present, China has established free trade zones and free trade ports in batches, forming an open trend of coordinated development between the east, west, north, south, and central regions, as well as land and sea. The national pilot trade zones have formed a wild goose formation pattern. Through institutional innovation, they have solved development difficulties, led high-quality development, and promoted the formation of a new round of comprehensive opening up pattern in China, better serving the overall strategic layout of opening up to the outside world throughout the country.

In the practice of constructing free trade zones, various regions have formed their own exploration achievements. For example, the Beijing Pilot Free Trade Zone, established in 2020, focuses on deep-seated reforms and forms a new policy supply situation from three levels: macro, meso, and micro, with a focus on point to surface, chain exploration, and continuous iteration. At the same time, focusing on high-level openness, aiming to improve the synergy efficiency of factors, and helping data, talent, capital and other factors to maximize their effectiveness.

The Shandong Free Trade Zone explores the formation of a systematic and systematic institutional innovation "Shandong Model" based on the path method of "from nothing to something, from interruption to connection, from complexity to simplicity, and from dispersion to concentration". In the four years since its establishment, there have been 91000 new market entities, which is 1.5 times the total amount before its establishment. The average annual growth rate of foreign investment, foreign trade import and export, and cross-border RMB settlement amounts has been 41.9%, 23.3%, and 70.4%, respectively.

The Guangdong Free Trade Zone has been approved as one of the first pilot areas to connect with international high standards and promote institutional opening-up, fully promoting the implementation of 34 high-level opening-up measures; Taking the lead in opening up foreign investment access in the modern service industry and building an international legal service system, we have established the first Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and foreign legal investigation center in China, pioneered the application of Hong Kong law to resolve civil and commercial cases, and established a "dual mediation" mechanism for foreign-related civil and commercial cases; At the same time, the function of the international trade gateway hub is highlighted, the achievements of financial openness and innovation are fruitful, breakthroughs have been made in cooperation with Hong Kong and Macao, the modernization of the industrial system is accelerating, and the demonstration and driving role is more prominent.

There have been breakthroughs in the zero tariff policy and financial innovation of Hainan Free Trade Port. In the past five years, the proportion of the four leading industries in Hainan Free Trade Port's GDP has increased from 53% to 73%, and the degree of economic extroversion has increased by 15 percentage points. The actual utilization of foreign investment has continued to grow in recent years, FDI has doubled in three years, and more than 500000 talents have been introduced. The growth rate of market entities has remained the first in the country.

The Sichuan Free Trade Zone has provided its own "free trade proposal" through differentiated exploration, including the high-quality construction of the Sichuan Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone Collaborative Opening Demonstration Zone, the joint release of a batch of landmark institutional innovation achievements by Sichuan Chongqing, and the innovative launch of the "Shanghai Chongqing Direct Express" in Sichuan.

As a new area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, Lingang New Area has made a series of national leading innovative breakthroughs in the more than four years since its establishment. For example, nearly a hundred innovative measures for customs supervision, such as the implementation of advanced zones and post customs declaration in the first line, deepening the reform of commercial systems such as "separation of certificates and licenses" and "one industry, one certificate", establishing an institutional open system with "five freedoms and one convenience" as the core, deepening the linkage of institutional innovation in the Yangtze River Delta, etc. In the future, we will firmly promote the implementation of the strategy to enhance the pilot free trade zone.

Strengthening linkage development to achieve common improvement

As the first pilot free trade zone in China, the construction achievements of Shanghai Free Trade Zone have been widely recognized. Wu Ge, the full-time deputy director of the Sichuan Free Trade Office, stated that the Free Trade Pilot Zone is a test field for China to promote reform and improve the level of an open economy at the current stage, while the Shanghai Free Trade Pilot Zone is the vanguard and vane of free trade construction in the new era.

Zhang Xingcheng, Deputy Director of the Department of Commerce of Shandong Province and Deputy Director of the Free Trade Office of Shandong Province, also believes that the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone has played a "leading role" by taking the lead in implementing a series of heavyweight reform measures such as the national treatment plus negative list management model before foreign investment access, the single window of international trade, the free trade account, and the separation of certificates and licenses. This has explored new paths for comprehensively deepening reform and expanding opening up, and provided good experience for the construction of 20 other pilot free trade zones, including Shandong.

For the coordinated development of future free trade zones, various regions also have their own thoughts. Liu Meiying, the full-time deputy director of the "Two Districts" Office in Beijing, put forward four suggestions in promoting high-level opening up of free trade zones: first, promote the positive interaction between the top-level design of the opening system and local exploration, and form a coordinated layout, focused experiments, and rhythmic opening; The second is to optimize regulatory services, enhance the perception of foreign investment, increase reform efforts, accelerate the construction of regulatory service models that are in line with international norms, and further enhance the government's governance level; The third is to promote factor flow, gather high-end resources, further eliminate barriers to cross-border factor flow, and serve the construction of a new development pattern of international and domestic dual circulation; The fourth is to promote high-level "going out", enhance the influence of rules, establish broader trade alliances and bilateral cooperation mechanisms, and drive rules, regulations, standards, etc. to go out through the export of goods and services.

Yang Zhengwei, Director of the Coordination Department for Free Trade Zone Port Construction of the Ministry of Commerce, believes that the coordinated development of free trade pilot zones is of great significance in enhancing the effectiveness of reform and innovation, and serving the construction of a new development pattern. In his view, the construction of the pilot trade zone in the past decade has achieved significant results, driving high-level opening up and advancing deep-seated reforms. Moreover, their respective trade pilot zones have actively explored coordinated development and achieved good results. At the same time, he also put forward four suggestions for strengthening the linkage development of free trade pilot zones in the future, hoping that each trade pilot zone will further strengthen the linkage in institutional innovation, serving national strategies, industrial development, and achievement replication and promotion.

Text: Chen Shuo

Photography: Zheng Feng

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