In order to further reform China (Sichuan) Pilot Free Trade Zone (hereinafter referred to as the SCFTZ) at a high starting point, promote its high-level opening-up and high-quality development, and to continue to create an international business environment, the People's Government of Sichuan Province officially issued the Measures to Further Reform and Innovate Trade and Investment Facilitation in China (Sichuan) Pilot Free Trade Zone on May 12.
Centering on six area, i.e. improving trade facilitation, improving investment facilitation, improving international logistics facilitation, making the financial sector better serve the real economy, enhancing the role of administration of justice in ensuring trade and investment facilitation, and promoting collaborative reform and opening-up, Sichuan has formulated a number of measures to further reform and innovate trade and investment facilitation in SCFTZ.
To improve trade facilitation, Sichuan will take measures to innovate import trade, including accelerating the construction of Sichuan Tianfu New Area Import Trade Promotion and Innovation Demonstration Zone, and strengthening efforts to advance the pilot project of "cross-border e-commerce + fast delivery" in the SCFTZ by relying on special customs regulation zones; we will support the development of offshore trade, work with upper-level authorities to carefully assess policies related to such areas as corporate income tax, and support banks to improve audit efficiency based on clients' credit ratings and business models; we will boost the bonded maintenance business for foreign high-value capital goods and foreign consumables with high added value, and policies will be adopted to support the development of the bonded maintenance business; we will make it more unimpeded to import medical consumables, support the SCFTZ to carry out the pilot project for cross-border e-commerce retail imports of some medicines and medical equipment, and support Chengdu Port to build the first port for imported medicines and biological products.
To improve investment facilitation, we will take advantage of Sichuan-Hong Kong and Sichuan-Macao cooperation conferences to promote open cooperation in the tourism industry; we will ease the legal inspection of internationally registered vessels in the SCFTZ; we will encourage the South Sichuan Port Area of the SCFTZ to explore the opening-up and innovation of shipping services; we will support Luzhou Port to build itself into a smart port and to carry out pilot supervision of goods classification of domestic and foreign trade; we will provide overall land supply for key links and core projects of the industrial chain of the SCFTZ; we will carry out pilot trails for the positioning management of online games, and establish an assessment and management mechanism for the positioning management of online games.
In terms of improving international logistics facilitation, measures to be taken include supporting Chengdu in building itself into an international gateway and hub city, taking Chengdu's advantage of its fifth freedom of the air to attract and encourage foreign airlines to fly to Chengdu, allowing foreign airlines to carry passenger and freight to pass Chengdu to the third country on the basis of equality and mutual benefits, supporting the establishment of freight transport base airlines; building the Chengdu "Belt and Road" International Multimodal Transport Comprehensive Pilot Zone, and exploring and piloting the standardization documents for internal waters-land multimodal transport.
In terms of making the financial sector better serve the real economy, measures to be taken include improving the supervision policy of bonded delivery of futures, and supporting the establishment of the RMB Overseas Investment and Loan Fund in the SCFTZ. In addition, under the macro-prudential framework of cross-border financing, we will support eligible financial leasing companies registered in the SCFTZ to strive for the pilot project of facilitating foreign loans, and share the foreign loans quota with their subordinate Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs). On the premise that the intellectual property rights have been confirmed and cash flow can be generated steadily, we encourage the development of various types of intellectual property pledge and insurance, and support the SCFTZ to standardize and explore the intellectual property securitization mode.
In terms of enhancing the role of administration of justice in ensuring trade and investment facilitation, measures to be take include endowing multimodal transport documents with real right certificate, carrying out practical exploration of endowing railway transport documents with real right while keeping risks under control, and striving to invite overseas well-known arbitration and dispute settlement organizations to set up business institutions in the SCFTZ.
To promote collaborative reform and opening-up, Sichuan will support the building of the leading collaborative reform area in the SCFTZ, promote empowerment and delegate power with greater efforts, and promote the simultaneous decentralization of provincial-level administration privileges in an orderly manner according to law. Moreover, we will promote the construction of Sichuan-Chongqing Pilot Free Trade Zone as a demonstration zone for collaborative opening-up, and further strengthen the opening-up of key areas such as finance, science and technology, health care, trade and digital economy.
