China News Service, Beijing, September 9th (Liu Wenwen) The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have recently issued the "Overall Plan for the Construction of the Hengqin Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone" and "The Plan for Comprehensively Deepening the Reform and Opening up of the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone."
What kind of policy support will be provided during the development and construction of Hengqin and Qianhai, and what kind of preferential policies?
The State Council Information Office of China held a press conference on the development and construction of Hengqin and Qianhai on the 9th. Officials from multiple departments introduced the current policy support and future construction of Hengqin and Qianhai.
Promoting financial interconnection is an important part of the connection of rules and mechanisms in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
In May last year, the People’s Bank of China and other financial management departments issued the "Opinions on Financial Support for the Construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area", focusing on key areas of financial reform and opening up, and deploying in the Greater Bay Area including Hengqin and Qianhai 26 financial open innovation work has been carried out.
Pan Gongsheng, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China and director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said that the current principle of "integration of far and near and people's livelihood and finance first" is continuing to promote the implementation of various financial innovation measures in Hengqin and Qianhai.
Pan Gongsheng further introduced that in terms of people's livelihood finance, remote methods were adopted to pilot the opening of mainland bank settlement accounts for Hong Kong and Macao residents, and gradually expand the scope and scale of institutional use; to facilitate Hong Kong and Macao residents to use mobile electronic payments in the Mainland.
In terms of market connectivity, Hong Kong and Macao investors will continue to expand channels for investment in the mainland capital and bond markets. In the near future, they will promote the implementation of "Cross-border Wealth Management Link" and bond "Southbound Link" projects.
In terms of green finance cooperation, actively promote local governments to issue green municipal bonds in Hong Kong and Macau, strengthen cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau green bond assessment and certification agencies, and jointly initiate the establishment of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Green Finance Alliance.
He said that the next step will be to gradually build a financial rule system that is in line with international standards, improve and improve a market-oriented, legalized, and international financial environment, and lead the opening up of China's financial industry.
Hengqin is an important carrier for promoting cooperation between Guangdong and Macao and promoting the moderately diversified economic development of Macao.
How to reflect the special tax preferential policies in the development and construction of Hengqin?
Vice Minister of Finance Xu Hongcai introduced three types of taxes and further improved policies and measures in terms of corporate income tax.
All industries that are conducive to the moderately diversified development of Macao's economy will be included in the policy scope of the 15% preferential corporate income tax rate; in terms of personal income tax, the preferential efforts will be further increased.
For domestic and foreign high-end talents and talents in short supply who work in the cooperation zone, the part of their personal income tax burden exceeding 15% will be exempted; in terms of import and export taxes, the branch management will be further optimized, and the “first-line” will be liberalized and the “second-line” managed. .
The implementation of preferential tax policies will inevitably bring about a reduction in central and local fiscal revenues.
Xu Hongcai added that in order to support the sustainability of Hengqin’s finances, the central government’s revenue reduction is borne by the central government, and transfer payments to local governments are not deducted; local revenue reduction in the cooperation zone, the central government specifically arranges comprehensive financial subsidies under a unified and standardized fiscal system.
He also emphasized that the central subsidy will be linked to the cooperation zone's attraction of Macao enterprises to settle in and expansion of employment, increase the real economy's output value, support key industries, etc., and increase the motivation of the cooperation zone to serve the diversified development of Macao's industries through institutional mechanisms.
Regarding the branch management policy, Zou Zhiwu, deputy director of the General Administration of Customs, explained that the implementation of branch management can better utilize the unique policy and institutional advantages of the cooperation zone, which is conducive to building a new high-level and open system integrated with Macau; Promote the moderately diversified economic development of Macao; it is conducive to the industrial docking between Qin and Macao; it is conducive to the mutual flow of people in Qin and Macao, especially for Macao residents to enter and exit the cooperation zone, so that the cooperation zone can truly become a new space for Macao residents to live and work, and the practice of "one country, two systems" New demonstration, a new highland for the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
In Zou Zhiwu's view, the customs support and service cooperation zone construction not only promotes the "hard connectivity" of infrastructure, but also pays attention to the "soft connectivity" of regulatory rules and standards.
Guangdong and Macao belong to different customs areas. The tariff levels, prohibition and control systems, inspection and quarantine and other laws and regulations of the two places are not the same. This requires the customs and relevant administrative departments of the two places to explore a set of common rules in the cooperation zone. Or mutual recognition rules and standards.
Under the multi-departmental deployment, the relevant supporting policies for the development and construction of the Hengqin and Qianhai Cooperation Zones are being implemented, giving full play to practical results.
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