In 2020, the first 18 pilot free trade zones will achieve 17.6% of China's foreign investment and 14.7% of imports and exports with less than four thousandths of China's land area, playing an important role in stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment.

On February 3, Tang Wenhong, Director of the Free Trade Zone and Port Department of the Ministry of Commerce, introduced the aforementioned situation at a special press conference on the construction of the pilot free trade zone during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period. Tang Wenhong said that in the next step, the Ministry of Commerce will focus on the concerns of market players, conduct more in-depth reforms in the pilot free trade zone, and further increase the opening up to the outside world, and in-depth development of trade in the pilot free trade zone. Investment liberalization and facilitation of reforms and innovations, formulating and promulgating a negative list of cross-border service trade in the pilot free trade zone, and promoting and supporting the pilot free trade zone in combination with its own strategic positioning and resource characteristics to carry out institutional innovation around the opening and development of characteristic industries, and to build Explore new development patterns, accumulate experience, and make new contributions.

Whether the free trade zone will be expanded again. Tang Wenhong said that the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Party proposed to improve the layout of the free trade pilot zone. The Ministry of Commerce will, in accordance with the decisions and deployment of the central government, conduct overall research on the basis of fully evaluating the effectiveness of the existing pilot free trade zone construction.

Reform and opening up pilot field, new highlights of economic development

According to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, a total of 393,000 new enterprises will be established in the 18 free trade zones before 2020, and the actual use of foreign capital will be 176.38 billion yuan. The total import and export volume will be 4.7 trillion yuan, which is less than four thousandths of the country's land area. Foreign investment accounted for 17.6% of the country and 14.7% of imports and exports, which played an important role in stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment.

Tang Wenhong said that the construction of a free trade zone is an important strategic move of the Party Central Committee to promote reform and opening up in the new era. During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the Ministry of Commerce further optimized the layout of the free trade zone and established 17 new free trade zones, bringing the total to 21. It also added a new Shanghai Lingang area, expanding the scope of the Zhejiang Free Trade Zone. At the same time, it has successively submitted to the Party Central Committee and the State Council for approval and issuance of 23 overall plans, the Guofa No. 38 document supporting the deepening of reform and innovation of the free trade zone, and supporting the opening and development policy measures of the entire oil and gas industry chain in the Zhejiang free trade zone, etc., with a total of more than 2,800 grants Reform pilot tasks.

At the same time, the Ministry of Commerce has also promoted high-level opening to the outside world. The special management measures for the negative list of foreign investment in the free trade zone have been reduced from the initial 190 items to the 122 items in the early period of the "13th Five-Year Plan", and reduced to 30 items by 2020. The Hainan Free Trade Port has only 27 negative lists for foreign investment access.

During the 2020 epidemic, the Ministry of Commerce guided the free trade zone to take advantage of system innovation, solve the difficulties in employment, financing, and contract performance of enterprises, promote the resumption of work and production, and specifically introduced 24 measures to support the Hubei Free Trade Zone to support the recovery after the epidemic. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the free trade zone explored the formation of 173 institutional innovations and replicated them nationwide, reaching a total of 260.

"During the '13th Five-Year Plan' period, the respective trade zones boldly explored, made breakthroughs, and gave full play to the role of reform and opening up as a pilot field, laying a solid foundation for my country to build a new higher-level open economy and achieve high-quality development." Tang Wenhong said.

Promoting the negative list of cross-border service trade in Hainan Free Trade Port

Free trade ports are the highest level of openness in the world today. In the first half of 2020, the Party Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Overall Plan for the Construction of Hainan Free Trade Port", which has made a series of five major freedoms and conveniences of trade, investment, cross-border capital flow, personnel entry and exit, and transportation, as well as the safe and orderly flow of data. rule arrangements.

Yuan Yuan, deputy director of the Free Trade Zone Port Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port has been vigorously underway since the overall plan was released more than half a year ago. One is the continuous implementation of policy measures. Various departments have successively introduced policies such as the new policy for duty-free shopping on outlying islands, the supervision measures for the Yangpu Bonded Port Area, the opening of the seventh freedom rights, the preferential income tax for enterprises and individuals, the "zero-tariff" list of raw materials and transportation vehicles and yachts. The second is the rapid concentration of market entities. According to statistics, there will be 149,000 new enterprises in Hainan in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 107.1%. In the whole year, 1,005 foreign-funded enterprises were newly established, a year-on-year increase of 197.3%. Third, the tax exemption policy for outlying islands has been continuously optimized. On July 1, 2020, the new policy for duty-free shopping on outlying islands was implemented, which increased the limit for individual duty-free shopping on outlying islands, cancelled the limit for single items, and increased the product categories. The annual sales of duty-free goods across the island have doubled, effectively playing the role of attracting overseas consumption to return. A few days ago, relevant departments have jointly issued an announcement to increase the collection method for duty-free shopping, which will further enhance the duty-free shopping experience on outlying islands. Fourth, the throughput of Yangpu Port increased significantly. According to statistics, the throughput of Yangpu Port in 2020 reached 56.644 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 12.9%, and 1.019 million standard containers were completed, a year-on-year increase of 44%. Within this, foreign trade containers exceeded 203,000 TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 98.3%.

Yuan Yuan revealed that the Ministry of Commerce is currently working with relevant parties to promote the work on the negative list of cross-border service trade in the Hainan Free Trade Port. In the next step, we will work with relevant parties to implement the overall plan and continuously improve the level of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation of the Hainan Free Trade Port.

Coordinate and promote the free trade zone to actively explore the open development of the industrial chain and supply chain

In March 2020, the State Council approved 26 measures to support the development of the oil and gas industry chain in the Zhejiang Free Trade Zone. Yuan Yuan said that after nearly a year of exploration and practice, the 26 measures in 11 aspects proposed in the document have all been implemented. Preliminary statistics show that more than 80% of the tasks have been completed or substantial progress has been made, and significant results have been achieved in promoting the development of the entire oil and gas industry chain in the Zhejiang Free Trade Zone.

In the whole year of 2020, there will be 1880 new oil companies in the Zhejiang Free Trade Zone, the supply of marine fuel oil increased by 15.1% year-on-year, and the oil and gas throughput was 127 million tons. Practice has proved that to carry out integrated innovation from the perspective of the open development of the industrial chain, to break through the barriers of the system and mechanism, is conducive to the promotion of the development of industries with distinctive advantages and the agglomeration of relevant market players, enhance the internationalization level of the industrial chain supply chain, and achieve high quality development of.

"The Ministry of Commerce will continue to closely follow the development of the entire oil and gas industry chain in the Zhejiang Free Trade Zone, and earnestly summarize experience. At the same time, we will also coordinate and promote the development of the industrial chain supply chain in the free trade zone with conditions in accordance with the decisions and deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council. Open development will help build a new development pattern." Yuan Yuan said. Editor/Xu Shengpeng