Looking back on 2023, in the vast land of China, the construction of open platforms such as free trade pilot zones, comprehensive pilot projects for expanding the opening of the service industry, and national economic and technological development zones have successively reaped fruitful results——

In November 2023, the China (Xinjiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone was unveiled, expanding the number of pilot free trade zones nationwide to 22. In more than two months, the Xinjiang Pilot Free Trade Zone has added more than 2,000 business entities, a number of Fortune 500 companies have settled in, the first overseas bank, the first business license, the first financial support, and the first strategic cooperation. , the first global promotion... The report card of the Xinjiang Pilot Free Trade Zone fully demonstrates the great charm of the Pilot Free Trade Zone as an open highland.

At the beginning of last year, the Ministry of Commerce released the "Comprehensive Pilot Plan for Expanding the Opening-up of the Service Industry in Hangzhou", making Hangzhou the first pilot city in Zhejiang to promote the opening-up of the service industry. Over the past year, Hangzhou has accelerated, and 82 of the 97 tasks in the overall pilot plan have been implemented, with an implementation rate of 85%. It has become a vivid microcosm of China's comprehensive pilot demonstration of deepening the opening-up of the service industry.

At the end of last year, in the annual comprehensive development level assessment of national economic and technological development zones, the actual use of foreign capital in 230 national economic and technological development zones in 2022 was US$43.2 billion, accounting for 23% of the country's actual use of foreign capital; import and export The total amount is 10.3 trillion yuan, accounting for 25% of the country’s total import and export volume, and the driving role of opening up has been further enhanced.

The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of last year pointed out that high-level opening up should be expanded. The National Business Work Conference held recently made further arrangements in terms of "improving the effectiveness of the opening platform and steadily expanding institutional opening", requiring "in-depth implementation of the free trade pilot zone improvement strategy, deepening the comprehensive pilot demonstration of expanding opening up in the service industry, and improving national-level economic and technological development zone and other various park functions”.

The blueprint has been drawn up, and it’s time to make progress. The industry believes that looking into the future, as the effectiveness of open platforms continues to improve, China's high-level opening up will be vigorous and vigorous, and China's win-win cooperation with the world will also write a more exciting chapter.

Free Trade Pilot Zone: Advance into the deep-water area and continue exploring

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to implement the promotion strategy of free trade pilot zones. 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the construction of the China Pilot Free Trade Zone. In the past ten years, the construction of China's free trade pilot zones has been marching forward, and 22 free trade pilot zones have been established, basically forming a new pattern of reform and opening up covering the east, west, south, north, middle, and coordinating the coastal, inland and border areas, ushering in a new era of China's expansion of opening up. new wave.

Standing at a new starting point, when talking about how the pilot free trade zone can further improve the effectiveness of its open platform and steadily expand institutional opening, the interviewed experts have put forward relevant suggestions.

"At present, the free trade pilot zone still needs to carry out many aspects of exploration and innovation in terms of opening up to the outside world." Tong Jiadong, former vice president of Nankai University and director of the China Free Trade Pilot Zone Research Center of Nankai University, told the International Business Daily reporter that in addition to ensuring trade freedom and investment In addition to freedom and financial freedom, the construction of the free trade pilot zone should also pay attention to the freedom of personnel movement, freedom of transportation and freedom of information flow, especially the freedom of data and information flow.

The "Overall Plan for Comprehensively Aligning with International High-Standard Economic and Trade Rules to Promote High-level Institutional Opening of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone" recently issued by the State Council clearly puts forward requirements such as exploring the establishment of a legal, safe and convenient cross-border data flow mechanism. In Tong Jiadong’s view, this will be the key direction for the construction of the free trade pilot zone in the future.

Sheng Bin, Vice President of Nankai University, told the International Business Daily reporter that the free trade pilot zone should adhere to institutional opening as the core, strive to enhance its open attributes and functions, and continue to anchor its work on the theme of openness, especially in service trade. Liberalization and opening of the service industry, foreign investment access, investment facilitation, regulatory reform, business movement of natural persons, digital economy and trade and other fields. Put the optimization of the business environment in the pilot free trade zone in a prominent position, make up for the shortcomings, strengthen the pilot competition policy, and create a market environment for fair competition. Strengthen policy coordination among various departments to solve the problem of "admission but no access". Under the premise that conditions are mature, explore and cultivate new forms of trade and finance so that the results of the construction of the free trade pilot zone can benefit more ordinary people.

Comprehensive Demonstration Zone for Expanding Opening-up of the Service Industry: Connecting with high-level rules and accelerating independent opening-up

The opening up of the service industry is an important focus for China to build a new development pattern and promote a new round of high-level opening up. At present, the construction of comprehensive demonstration zones for the expansion and opening up of the national service industry has blossomed in many places and has achieved fruitful results. In the first three quarters of 2023, the added value of the service industry in the country's 11 pilot demonstration provinces and cities reached 13.2 trillion yuan, accounting for 69.7% of the local regional GDP; the actual use of foreign investment in the service industry was 50.85 billion US dollars, accounting for 55.6% of the investment in the national service industry. ; The high-tech service industry accounts for 43% of the actual use of foreign investment in the local service industry, which is 4.5 percentage points higher than the national level.

“In the next step, the Ministry of Commerce will work with relevant departments to guide and support pilot demonstration provinces and cities to accurately align with international high-standard economic and trade rules, deepen differentiated explorations such as industrial innovation development and cross-border integration, strengthen the systematic integration, promotion and application of innovation results, and more This is to accumulate experience and explore paths for high-level opening up and high-quality development of the national service industry." Zhu Bing, director of the Department of Foreign Investment Management of the Ministry of Commerce, said at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office.

Achievements are inspiring and goals are inspiring. Since the beginning of the new year, many places have made a series of arrangements for comprehensive pilot demonstrations of deepening the opening-up of the service industry: the 2024 Beijing Municipal Government Work Report pointed out that this year Beijing will steadily expand institutional opening-up, including "accelerating the implementation of a new round of national service industry opening-up". The "Plan for the Construction of a Comprehensive Demonstration Zone for Expanding Opening Up" was ranked first; Tianjin issued "Several Measures for Tianjin to Further Optimize the Foreign Investment Environment and Increase the Attraction of Foreign Investment", clearly giving play to the leading and leading role of the comprehensive pilot demonstration for expanding the opening up of the service industry; Guangdong Province It was decided to set up a special task force to support the comprehensive pilot work of expanding the opening of the service industry in Guangzhou, promptly study and solve the difficult problems raised by Guangzhou during the pilot, and jointly promote Guangzhou to complete the comprehensive pilot reform tasks of expanding the opening of the service industry assigned by the state with high quality...

Regarding how to better leverage the demonstration role of comprehensive pilot platforms for expanding the opening up of the service industry, Nie Pingxiang, a researcher at the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, suggested that pilot areas should actively connect with CPTPP and DEPA in areas such as cross-border service trade, intellectual property rights, and e-commerce (digital trade). high standards and high rules, and accelerate independent opening up. At the same time, China should actively participate in negotiations on services trade, digital trade, e-commerce and other issues under the framework of the WTO, regional and bilateral economic and trade agreements, and promote institutional opening and cooperation on rules and regulations in the service industry.

National Economic Development Zone: Improving quality and efficiency, reaching a new level

National-level economic development zones are important carriers of China’s opening-up and have long played a pioneering and leading role. The recent assessment and evaluation results released by the Ministry of Commerce show that the main indicators of national economic development zones have maintained growth, with the growth rate higher than the national average, and their proportion in the country has further increased, making important contributions to consolidating the fundamentals of foreign trade and foreign investment.

As one of the first batch of national economic development zones in the country, Nantong Economic Development Zone has newly signed and registered 56 projects worth 500 million yuan and more than 30 million US dollars in 2023, with a total investment of 46.541 billion yuan, including 18 foreign-invested projects with a total investment of 1.318 billion US dollars. There are 38 domestically funded projects with a total investment of 37.315 billion yuan, demonstrating the high-quality development vitality of the national economic development zone.

2024 marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the first batch of national economic development zones. As we embark on a new journey, how should national economic development zones continue to improve the effectiveness of their open platforms? Chen Jianwei, a professor at the National Institute for Opening up at the University of International Business and Economics, put forward three suggestions: first, build a cross-regional industrial Internet platform; second, actively implement unified technical standards and specifications; third, focus on cultivating technological innovation enterprises related to the development and application of new technologies. and industrial service providers to provide support for the digitalization of the industrial chain.

At the same time, the Ministry of Commerce and other departments will continue to promote national economic development zones to a new level. Ministry of Commerce spokesperson He Yadong recently stated that on the basis of publicizing and summarizing 40 years of construction experience and development achievements, macro-guidance will be strengthened to promote high-level opening up and high-quality development. At the same time, support the national economic development zones in the eastern region to play a "main force" role in consolidating the basic base of foreign trade and foreign investment, enhance the ability of national economic development zones in the central and western regions to undertake industrial transfers, and promote the innovation and upgrading of national economic development zones in the northeastern region. In addition, a long-term mechanism should be established to improve the full-cycle management of upgrades, assessments and exits, and comprehensively improve the development quality and level of national economic development zones.