Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, my country has successively deployed and established 21 pilot free trade zones, forming a pilot pattern covering the east, west, north, south, and middle. Quality development has made an important contribution.

  Today, the respective pilot trade zones have boldly explored and made breakthroughs, and have given full play to their role as experimental fields for reform and opening up, laying a solid foundation for my country to build a new system of higher-level open economy and achieve high-quality development.

  Form a batch of institutional innovation achievements

  The construction of a pilot free trade zone is an important strategic measure for the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core to promote reform and opening up in the new era.

Since the establishment of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone in 2013, my country has continuously optimized the layout of the Pilot Free Trade Zone. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, 17 new Pilot Free Trade Zones have been established, bringing the total number to 21, and the Shanghai Lingang New Area has been added. Expand the regional scope of the Zhejiang Pilot Free Trade Zone.

In June 2020, the "Overall Plan for the Construction of Hainan Free Trade Port" was officially released, and the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port is booming.

  "The Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone is a large experimental field. It is necessary to sow good seeds, cultivate carefully, manage and protect them carefully, expect a good harvest, and spread the experience of cultivating good seeds." This is General Secretary Xi Jinping's comments on the construction of the Pilot Free Trade Zone. High expectations.

In recent years, the pilot free trade zone has risen from the opening of factors to the opening of international trade and investment rules. It is a highland for my country to continuously innovate and expand its opening-up in investment, trade, finance, foreign investment services and management in the new era.

  In 2021, my country announced the first negative list in the field of cross-border service trade, namely the negative list of cross-border service trade of Hainan Free Trade Port.

This negative list has achieved a major breakthrough in my country's cross-border service trade management model, and has taken an important step in promoting the expansion and opening of cross-border service trade.

  The special management measures on the negative list of foreign investment access in the Pilot Free Trade Zone have been reduced from 190 at the beginning to 122 at the early stage of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", and reduced to 27 by 2021. The expansion and opening of the investment field is steadily advancing.

  Wang Shouwen, Vice Minister of Commerce and Deputy Representative of International Trade Negotiations, said that the Pilot Free Trade Zone is not only for the development of a specific area, but more importantly, it is a pilot project for the country and creates good experience to serve the country's major strategies.

During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the Pilot Free Trade Zone explored and formed 173 institutional innovations for replication and promotion across the country, reaching a total of 260.

A new batch of 18 best practice cases will be launched in 2021. So far, 278 institutional innovation achievements have been promoted in the pilot free trade zone.

  At the same time, the Pilot Free Trade Zone itself has also achieved great development.

In 2021, the utilization of foreign capital in the 21 pilot free trade zones will increase by 19%, 4.1 percentage points higher than the national level.

The import and export of foreign trade increased by 29.5%, which was 8.1 percentage points higher than that of the whole country.

Although the pilot free trade zone is small, it accounts for 18.5% of the country's total foreign investment and 17.3% of the country's total import and export.

"The Pilot Free Trade Zone has contributed to the stabilization of the fundamentals of foreign trade and foreign investment," said Wang Shouwen.

  Differentiated exploration continues to deepen

  Over the years, my country's pilot free trade zones have focused on their own strategic positioning and locational advantages, and have made differentiated explorations to promote the in-depth implementation of national strategies and create new highlands for opening to the outside world.

In particular, the continuous deepening of differentiated exploration and the increase in stress testing have effectively promoted the deepening of reform and innovation in the Pilot Free Trade Zone.

  In the east, the respective pilot trade zones have accelerated the accumulation of high-quality factor resources to drive the development of new industries and new models.

In the central and western regions, the respective pilot trade zones are striving to build inland gateways to the outside world, and to open up channels to the outside world through the inland regions to serve the “Belt and Road” construction.

The border regions should identify complementary advantages with neighboring countries and regions, explore cross-border trade, cross-border logistics, and two-way investment, and serve the "Belt and Road" initiative.

  Bai Ming, deputy director of the International Market Research Institute of the Academy of Commerce of the Ministry of Commerce, said that with the continuous deepening of reform and opening up, the pilot free trade zone will take on the important task of "pioneering" for reform and development in various regions.

The respective pilot trade zones explore differentiated development paths based on factors such as the local industrial base and development direction, and create the advantages of opening up around the country, which is conducive to the formation of more replicable promotion experiences across the country.

  Focusing on the needs of the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Beijing Pilot Free Trade Zone will build the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei National Technology Innovation Center, and create a global collaborative innovation service model of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei linkage.

  The Hunan Pilot Free Trade Zone is based on the strategy of rising in the central region, and strives to build an international investment and trade corridor that connects the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, develops a direct logistics chain between Hunan, Hong Kong and Macao, and builds the Chenzhou International Inland Port and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Bonded Goods Center. The first stop of the western distribution.

  Anhui Pilot Free Trade Zone actively serves the construction of the "Belt and Road", deploys investment projects in countries along the "Belt and Road", and promotes international production capacity cooperation through the export of core technologies and complete sets of biological equipment.

  Although the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port started late, the pace of catching up has not stopped.

Over the past few years, my country has focused on accelerating the construction of a free trade port policy system, promulgated and implemented special measures to ease market access, a negative list for foreign investment access, a negative list for cross-border service trade, and two 15% income tax policies. The "Hainan Free Trade Port Law of the People's Republic of China" was promulgated; reforms in the fields of minimalist administrative examination and approval reform, administrative management system reform, and talent development system and mechanism reform were steadily promoted, and efforts were made to promote measures such as system integration and innovation.

  "Hainan has made positive progress in comprehensively deepening reform and opening up, and has now entered an important stage in the construction of Hainan's free trade port, and the results of high-level opening up have gradually emerged." Director of the Academic Committee of the Hainan Academy of Open Economic Research, and the State Council Development Research Center for Foreign Economic Relations Zhao Jinping, former director of the Research Department, said.

  Basic construction of policy and institutional framework

  With the continuous advancement of the construction of my country's pilot free trade zones, my country has given the pilot free trade zones greater autonomy in reform.

At present, 21 pilot free trade zones have a total of 28 construction plans, and a total of more than 3,400 reform pilot tasks have been launched.

The reform tasks involve trade liberalization and facilitation, investment liberalization and facilitation, financial services for the real economy, and transformation of government functions, which have preliminarily established the basic framework for the policy system of the FTZ.

  At the same time, in order to support the development of the pilot free trade zone, the state has launched a number of special policy documents with relatively high gold content to solve some professional problems encountered in the construction of the pilot free trade zone and expand the depth and depth of the exploration of the pilot free trade zone. breadth.

  In 2018, the "Notice of the State Council on Several Measures to Support the Deepening of Reform and Innovation in Pilot Free Trade Zones" was issued, and 53 reform measures were introduced to increase empowerment.

  In 2019, the "Notice of the State Council on Carrying out the Full Coverage Pilot of the "Separation of Licenses and Licenses" Reform in Pilot Free Trade Zones" was issued.

  In 2020, the "Reply of the State Council on Several Measures to Support the Opening and Development of the Oil and Gas Industry Chain in China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone" was issued.

  In 2021, "Several Measures on Promoting Trade and Investment Facilitation Reform and Innovation in Pilot Free Trade Zones" will be issued.

  These policy documents, while further intensifying the reform and innovation of the Pilot Free Trade Zone, help to accelerate the construction of a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international dual cycles mutually promoting each other.

After the implementation of the measures, the high-quality development of the export-oriented economy and export-oriented industries in the respective pilot trade zones has also been promoted.

  Zhejiang Pilot Free Trade Zone promotes the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, actively participates in the formation of the Yangtze River Delta Pilot Free Trade Zone Alliance, realizes the oil supply across the port area between Zhejiang and Shanghai, promotes the integration of maritime services, and publishes the quotation for the supply of low-sulfur fuel oil bonded ships in Zhoushan, China , to promote the joint cooperation between the futures and the present to build an integrated oil and gas trading market.

  In 2021, the industrial development platform of the Fujian Pilot Free Trade Zone will continue to grow, with about 11,900 new enterprises.

Xiamen IC industry continues to optimize the public services of the IC platform, and further promotes the bonded R&D pilot. In 2021, it will complete the foreign exchange payment of US$27 million, a year-on-year increase of 2.9 times.

  Today, the reform and innovation of the Pilot Free Trade Zone is starting again.

my country should continue to further promote high-level institutional opening up, give free trade pilot zones greater reform autonomy, strengthen the integration of reform and innovation systems, make overall plans for opening up and security, summarize experience in a timely manner and replicate and promote it, and strive to build an internationally influential and competitive system. Free Trade Zone.

  Feng Qiyu