Chinanews.com, February 2. The State Council Information Office held a press conference on business work and operations in 2022. Vice Minister of Commerce Guo Tingting introduced at the meeting that in 2022, each pilot trade zone will forge ahead and explore boldly. The new progress is concentrated in four aspects.
The first is to promote high-level opening up.
Each pilot trade zone has implemented a series of opening-up measures in the field of investment and trade, giving full play to the leading role of opening-up and making positive contributions to the development of foreign trade and foreign investment.
From January 1, 2022, the new version of the negative list for foreign investment access in the Pilot Free Trade Zone will be implemented, realizing the zero entry of the manufacturing industry and the continuous expansion of the service industry.
Throughout the year, the 21 pilot free trade zones actually used 222.52 billion yuan of foreign capital, accounting for 18.1% of the country's total.
Among them, the actual use of foreign capital in high-tech industries was 86.34 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 53.2%.
At the same time, various localities continue to innovate measures to continuously improve the level of trade liberalization and facilitation.
For example, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Heilongjiang have innovated models to further promote the development of trade between border residents.
Shaanxi has innovated the "customs declaration first, then packing" mode for cross-border e-commerce bulk cargo, which has increased the customs clearance time by 2-3 days.
In 2022, the 21 pilot free trade zones will realize a total import and export volume of 7.5 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.5%, accounting for 17.8% of the country's total.
The second is to deepen reform and innovation.
The Pilot Free Trade Zone insists on promoting the improvement of government governance capabilities through institutional innovation, and drives the continuous optimization of the business environment.
In 2022, the Ministry of Commerce and relevant departments promoted the issuance of 56 documents supporting the construction of the Pilot Free Trade Zone, giving the Pilot Free Trade Zone more reform tasks to try first.
As of the end of 2022, provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government have delegated more than 5,400 items of provincial management authority to the pilot free trade zones, greatly reducing the level of approval.
Shandong, Guangxi and other places have also innovatively launched a "negative list" style of decentralization.
The third is to promote high-quality development.
The Pilot Free Trade Zone actively explores to break down institutional barriers that hinder the accumulation of domestic and foreign innovative resources and elements, promotes the accelerated development of new industries, new formats, and new models, and initially builds a number of industrial clusters with strong competitiveness.
For example, the Xiyong area of Chongqing has formed a 100-billion-level smart terminal industrial cluster with an annual output of more than 100 million units; the Wuhan area of Hubei has vigorously developed the optoelectronic information industry, gathering more than 16,000 related companies.
The fourth is to serve the major national strategies.
Each pilot trade zone took the initiative to actively promote cross-regional collaborative innovation.
In 2022, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, and Shaanxi will jointly build the Yellow River Basin Pilot Free Trade Zone Alliance together with the other five provinces along the Yellow River. Together with the Alliance of Pilot Free Trade Zones, etc., they will give full play to the radiating and leading role of the new heights of reform and opening up, injecting new momentum into serving and promoting the implementation of major national strategies, especially major regional strategies.
Guo Tingting said that in 2023, we will earnestly perform the functions of the Office of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference on the Work of the State Council Pilot Free Trade Zone.
The first is to actively align with international high-standard economic and trade rules, increase stress testing in free trade pilot zones and free trade ports, and steadily expand institutional opening up of rules, regulations, management, and standards, so as to accumulate experience and explore for deepening reforms in related domestic fields. path.
The second is to support the Pilot Free Trade Zone to carry out in-depth differentiated exploration, and promote the open and innovative development of the entire industrial chain in key areas such as integrated circuits, biomedicine, and high-end equipment manufacturing.
The third is to replicate and promote more and better institutional innovation achievements to further release the dividends of reform and opening up.
(China New Finance and Economics)