An aerial drone photo taken on Aug. 15, 2024 shows a view of the Harbin sub-area of Heilongjiang pilot free trade zone (FTZ) in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. Known as China's "Ice City", Harbin has a reputation for its cool weather and diversified attractions, even during the summer months, which helps it remain attractive to tourists throughout the year. (Photo: Xinhua)
In an effort to promote high-level opening-up and drive high-quality development, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council have issued a guideline policy to further enhance the country's pilot free trade zones, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.
The guideline calls for comprehensively enhancing the level of institutional openness, the effectiveness of systematic reforms and the quality of an open economy in the pilot free trade zones in the next five years and further improving the policy system, focusing on the free and convenient flow of trade, investment, capital, transportation and personnel, and the orderly flow of data with an emphasis on security.
It called for promoting the optimization and upgrading of trade of goods, invigorating the development of services trade, and supporting innovative development in digital trade.
The guideline said that China will explore the establishment of a "white list" system for biopharmaceutical companies to import research and development items, allowing exemptions from the import drug clearance form. It will also explore the establishment of a "white list" system for imported food and drug substances, allowing food and drug substances for food use to pass customs according to actual use.
Investment liberalization and facilitation should be advanced, and the level of opening up should be enhanced to attract and utilize foreign capital with greater efforts. The guideline urged promoting the integration of innovation chains and industrial chains, and expanding international sci-tech exchanges and cooperation.
Work should be done in building a modern industrial system, enhancing the modernization level of industrial chains, promoting the establishment of advanced industrial clusters, and facilitating the coordinated development of industries in the pilot FTZs, it said.
It will build efficient, smooth and open channels, improve the level of shipping services and strengthen the radiation capacity of land and air transportation. It will be allowed that liquefied natural gas is used as fuel for international ships and enjoys a bonded policy, said the guideline.
We will make the pilot free trade zones into important hubs for facilitating the smooth flow of domestic and international circulation and a powerful engine for promoting high-quality development, so as to better play a demonstration role in further comprehensively deepening reform and promoting Chinese modernization, the guideline highlighted.
The positioning of the pilot free trade zones will be as an anchor for the new coordinates of institutional opening-up, aiming to achieve a comprehensive improvement in the level of institutional opening-up in about five years, Wan Zhe, an economist and professor at the Belt and Road School of Beijing Normal University, told the Global Times on Monday.
The core breakthroughs of high-level opening-up include global digital governance, financial opening-up and cultivating new quality productive forces, which will help the domestic industrial chain to move up the global value chain, she added.
"China's focus for the pilot free trade zones has shifted from export processing and bonded logistics to institutional innovation and alignment with international standards," Huang Bin, a deputy director of the Guoyan Economic Research Institute, told the Global Times on Monday.
The orientation of the pilot free trade zones is very clear, that is, to steadily expand the opening of rules, regulations, management and standards to promote reform integration, Huang added, citing details such as the opening of the medical and pharmaceutical fields, as well as the "white list" for food and drug substances, which are all measures aimed at high-level openness.
The measures come as three pilot free trade zones in Tianjin, Guangdong Province and Fujian Province welcome their 10th anniversaries, and they will be assigned new pilot reform tasks, according to a press conference held by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) on Friday.
China will strengthen the building of domestic pilot free trade zones, carry out pioneering and leading reforms, and firmly respond to external risks and challenges in light of a complex and severe international situation, the MOFCOM said on Friday.
Also on Monday, Ling Ji, vice minister of commerce and deputy China international trade representative, said that China is accelerating the expansion of pilot programs for the services sector, further expanding independent and unilateral opening-up in an orderly manner.
This is a concrete action to manage China's own affairs well and inject more certainty and stability into the world, Ling told a press conference held by the State Council Information Office in Beijing on Monday regarding the recently released work plan that aims to expand the nation's comprehensive pilot programs to more cities to accelerate the opening-up of the services sector.
Amid the growing trends of global protectionism and unilateralism, China sends a clear signal of commitment to openness through concrete actions, Li Yong, a senior research fellow at the China Association of International Trade, told the Global Times on Monday.
China leverages its vast market advantage and, through free trade zones and other platforms, actively explores higher levels of openness, demonstrating its commitment to sharing development opportunities globally, Li added.
