New surveys: Workers prepare a cargo ship in Haikou Port in China’s southern Hainan province. Along with other agencies, the port is expected to introduce systematic trials in areas such as the services industry. — AFP
HAIKOU: China’s pilot free-trade zones (FTZs) and the Hainan Free-Trade Port (FTP) are expected to adopt deeper reforms and conduct more systematic trials in key and frontier areas, such as the services industry, say experts and government officials.
This will facilitate the country’s deepening reform and expanding high-standard opening-up, providing impetus to both the Chinese and global economies, they claim.
Guo Tingting, Commerce Vice-Minister, said that China would intensify stress testing in the FTZs and at the Hainan FTP to accumulate experience and explore pathways for reforms in related fields.
Since the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free-Trade Zone was established in 2013, the country has set up 21 FTZs. Efforts have been made to achieve an islandwide, independent customs clearance operation in the Hainan FTP by the end of 2025 after the construction of the FTP began in 2020.
“The FTZs and the Hainan FTP are facing high expectations from the central leadership as a test field for reform and opening up,” said Huo Jianguo, vice-chairman of the China Society for World Trade Organisation Studies.
“The FTZs are likely to accelerate opening up of industries, including telecommunications, insurance and eCommerce, while the Hainan FTP is expected to make bolder trials in increasing openness in the services industry, including senior care, audits and professional design,” he said.
According to Gu Xueming, president of the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, more institutional innovation that can be replicated nationwide with good results is expected from the FTZs and the Hainan FTP.
“The FTZs must scale up institutional innovation and accumulate experience on both transforming government functions and aligning with high-level international economic and trade rules,” he said.
The FTZs are also expected to strengthen institutional innovation to increase the openness of the whole industrial chain in the key areas for local regions and add impetus to the quality development of China’s open economy, he said.
According to a recent report by the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, with a series of institutional innovations in trade, investment and industrial development, the FTZs have established a more open and energetic system of policies that have become an important platform for opening up.
According to another academy report, the Hainan FTP has also made significant progress in trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation.
According to experts, the FTZs and the Hainan FTP will also make greater efforts to foster world-class industrial clusters in fields such as modern logistics, biotechnology and new materials.
Guo said the FTZs and the Hainan FTP are encouraged to carry out different explorations to advance the open and innovative development of industrial chains.
Wu Xiaohua, an official with the Lingang Special Area of the pilot FTZ in Shanghai, said that Lingang has introduced more than 200 integrated circuit projects in the past three years.
He added with the relevant investment totalling 240 billion yuan (US$35bil or RM152bil) it will form the most complete integrated circuit industrial chain in China. — China Daily/ANN
