Economic talks | How to build free trade zones and free trade ports with high quality under the new development pattern
Author: director of the Research Center of Nankai University in China free trade area experimental, Professor Tong Jiadong; Nankai University School of Economics Associate Professor Liu Cheng, deputy director of the International Trade Department
The Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core adapts to the changes in the international economic and political situation under the unprecedented changes in a century, and proposes to build a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international dual cycles promote each other, and emphasizes that the door to the outside world will only Get bigger and bigger.
This requires us to force reforms by opening to the outside world, speed up the construction of pilot free trade zones and free trade ports, do a good job in trade liberalization, investment facilitation, and financial innovation, and accumulate experience that can be replicated and promoted. To ensure high-quality development, ensure that the system and mechanism are ensured.
The layout and characteristics of China's pilot free trade zone and free trade port
Since China established its first pilot free trade zone in Shanghai on September 29, 2013, after six expansions, there have been 21 pilot free trade zones and one free trade port.
From the perspective of geographical distribution, taking the Hu Huanyong Line of population distribution as a reference, the China Pilot Free Trade Zone has basically been laid out east of the Hu Huanyong Line.
This means that the construction of China's free trade pilot zone should shift from geographic expansion to quality improvement, and a shift towards high-quality construction of free trade pilot zones and free trade ports.
In terms of types, China has basically formed four types of free trade pilot zones: free trade seaports, dry ports, air ports and island ports. It is hoped that on the basis of learning from foreign advanced experience, a free trade pilot zone with Chinese characteristics will be formed. Free trade port.
From the perspective of the choice of the economic foundation of the free trade zone, these pilot free trade zones or free trade ports are all provinces or regions that have already had a good industrial foundation and an excellent open environment during the reform and opening up.
These free trade zones or free trade ports have their own advantages and characteristics in their industrial development, thus providing a variety of experimental environments for free trade, or multiple "test rooms" and "test fields" under different test conditions.
From an open point of view, the layout of these free trade pilot zones and "test plots" covers a variety of regional industrial structure types and multiple development stages, providing a variety of "external impacts" for testing various aspects, fields, and industries of the open economy. Scenes".
In addition, in each pilot free trade zone, special customs supervision zones and non-customs special supervision zones are set up to provide a clear division of land for deepening economic system reform and expanding trade freedom, investment facilitation and financial liberalization.
From the perspective of block design, each pilot trade zone generally has three zones in order to provide sufficient space for technological industry innovation, trade and investment liberalization arrangements, and reform and innovation development.
If you need to accommodate new industries, you can also build an expansion zone for the development of digital trade like the Zhejiang Pilot Free Trade Zone.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China’s original intention for establishing a free trade zone and a free trade port has been very clear. It is to use the free trade zone as a test ground for building socialist economy with Chinese characteristics and deepening economic system reform.
At the same time, through the free trade, investment facilitation and financial innovation and exploration in the pilot zone, as well as the corresponding stress test, experience and lessons are obtained, and rules and systems are formed on this basis, and finally replicated and promoted nationwide.
Suggestions on Speeding up the Construction of Free Trade Pilot Zones and Free Trade Port Institutions
According to the experience of international free trade zone construction, a reliable and predictable free trade zone, first of all, must have a set of systematic laws and regulations.
The clear, strict, and small discretion of laws and regulations, and the operability of laws and regulations are the basis and guide for establishing a sound market economy order.
Second, we must learn from internationally accepted free trade practices and investment rules to create a trade and investment environment for pilot free trade zones and free trade ports.
Third, intellectual property protection is a necessary environmental basis for attracting high-tech industries and enterprises, especially for clear and strict implementation of free transactions of intellectual property.
Only in this way can we introduce, develop and innovate modern high technology for a long time, and form an industry cluster with high technology, information industry, artificial intelligence, and big data industries as the pillars.
The goal and level of China's modern free trade pilot zone or free trade port construction will continue to improve with the continuous development of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation.
The introduction of high-tech industries and enterprises will become the key to the sustainable development of free trade zones and free trade ports.
Fourth, while the state delegates the necessary management powers, it is necessary to establish an institutionalized regional innovation fault tolerance mechanism as soon as possible to ensure bold experimentation.
Fifth, it is necessary to continue to guide the respective pilot trade zones to adhere to the comparative advantages in the industrial development and layout of each region on the basis of replicating and promoting the advanced system and mechanism reform experience, so as to avoid the convergence of industrial development plans in the construction of the free trade pilot zones. Lose the significance of multiple experiments.
Sixth, in the form of division of labor, the respective pilot trade zones are encouraged to test the risk of opening up in a targeted manner, to advance regional trade freedom, investment facilitation and financial opening, and to form experience, especially experience in risk prevention and control, for promotion and implementation .