FTA Free Trade Port Led The 2020 Opening Up To Further Upgrade

China's opening to the outside world will start again. In December 31, 2019, the implementation of the regulations on the implementation of foreign investment law was published in full, and it was implemented in January 1, 2020 with a number of important laws and regulations, such as the foreign investment law and the judicial interpretation of foreign investment law, which together constitute an important support for China's legal business environment. On this basis, China is still brewing more open and upgrading initiatives. "Economic reference daily" reporter learned that China will continue to reduce the negative list, increase the incentive list, and expand market access through "one minus one increase". It is worth noting that the free trade area and free trade port as an open front position are accelerating the first step of institutional reform and exploring the way for more open initiatives.

From the "foreign investment law" passed at the beginning of this year, the two list of foreign investment admittance negative list and the 2019 edition of the foreign investment access industry list released by the middle of the year and the 2019 edition of the list of foreign investment are encouraged, and then the opinions on further improving the utilization of foreign investment (No. 23 issued by the government), the judicial interpretation of foreign investment law and the regulations on the implementation of the foreign investment law promulgated by the government in recent years were released in 2019.

"In general, compared with the previous years, 2019 is the year when China has the most independent initiatives, the most open and the most open level. It has formed the" combination boxing "which has opened wider to the outside world and absorbed foreign capital, which has effectively stabilized the confidence and expectations of foreign investment and effectively ensured the realization of stable foreign capital targets throughout the year. Zong Changqing, director of the foreign affairs division of the Ministry of Commerce, said so at a recent briefing on the national business conference.

The reporter learned at the briefing that since 2019, the Ministry of Commerce has taken the lead in organizing the clean-up of national laws and regulations concerning foreign affairs, and the more than 400 provisions of the national revision and abolition of foreign investment laws and regulations, which have provided a guarantee for the smooth implementation of the foreign investment law. Among them, only the Ministry of Commerce abolished 8 departments and regulations related to foreign investment, 56 regulatory documents.

On the day of December 31, 2019, the Ministry of Commerce issued the decision to abolish Several Provisions on the change of ownership of foreign investors, the detailed rules for the implementation of automatic import license management of foreign invested enterprises, and the administrative measures for foreign investment in mineral exploration enterprises. On the same day, the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Market Supervision issued a new version of the "foreign investment information reporting method" to guide foreign investors and foreign investment enterprises to report investment information conveniently and accurately.

With the successive landing of a series of open measures, the confidence and expectations of foreign investment have been effectively stabilized, and the realization of stable foreign capital targets has been effectively guaranteed. Zong Changqing said, according to statistics, in 2019 1-11, the actual use of foreign capital 845 billion 940 million yuan, an increase of 6% over the same period, is expected to increase by around 5% yuan in the whole year. Among them, more than 100 million US dollars and 722 big projects increased by 15.5%.

It is worth noting that the results of FTA are particularly notable. Tang Wenhong, director of the port division of the Ministry of Commerce of the Ministry of Commerce, said that in the 1-10 months of 2019, there were about 21.7 new enterprises and 5123 foreign-funded enterprises in the original 12 free trade pilot areas, and 108 billion 390 million yuan in actual utilization of foreign investment and 3 trillion and 200 billion yuan in total import and export volume. "Less than 4/1000 of the country's total land area has achieved 14.4% of the total foreign investment and 12.5% of the total import and export, which has made positive contributions to stable foreign trade and stable foreign investment." Tang Wenhong said.

Some analysts pointed out that at present, the total amount of global transnational investment is still at a low level, and the competition for attracting foreign capital is becoming increasingly fierce. Facing a complex international environment, greater efforts and deeper reform and opening up are the fundamental way out for China's development. The free trade area and free trade port will also take on a number of pilot tasks.

For the next specific opening measures, various departments have begun to deploy. Zong Changqing revealed that China will continue to reduce negative list, encourage and encourage the list, and expand market access through "one minus one increase". In addition, we will establish and improve the foreign investment service system and the complaint mechanism of foreign-funded enterprises, so as to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of foreign-funded enterprises.

As the "pressure test area" to expand the opening up, the FTA trial area is making more breakthroughs in the negative list system. Tang Wenhong said that the Ministry of Commerce will further reduce the negative list of foreign investment access in the FTA pilot area with the relevant departments, explore the establishment of a negative list management system for cross border trade in the FTA pilot area, and intensify exploration in promoting institutional openness in rules, regulations, management and standards, so as to accumulate experience for achieving a higher level of opening up to the outside world.

Regarding the construction of the free-trade port in Hainan, which is of great concern, Tang Wenhong revealed that Hainan free trade port will highlight investment freedom and trade freedom, implement market entry commitments, namely, enter the system, improve the property rights protection system, adhere to the financial services entity economy, implement more open and convenient personnel entry and exit policy and stop residence policy, establish a special tax system with international competitiveness, and establish a regulatory standard and regulatory system in line with international standards.

"At present, our country is opening up from the open flow of commodities and factors to rules and regulations, and pays more attention to institutional and structural arrangements." Chi Fulin, President of the China (Hainan) reform and Development Research Institute, told the economic reference daily that to promote institutional openness, we must take market economy, rule of law and internationalized business environment as the important direction of government governance reform.

Chi Fulin pointed out that in recent years, our business environment has improved significantly and the global rankings have increased significantly. However, some indicators in China still have a large gap with the international advanced level. To promote institutional openness, it is necessary to complement the international advanced level in the business environment and further consolidate the short board. For example, we should reduce the cost of institutional transaction by reducing taxes and reducing fees, further reduce or cancel all kinds of expenses, fully implement the system of independent registration and simple cancellation, and abolish the filing system of general investment projects in enterprises, and carry out "run at most".