On May 19th, the reporter learned from the Free Trade Office of Sichuan Province that the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone will develop itself into version 2.0 and endeavor to tackle three major tasks of institutional innovation, characteristic trials and coordinated opening-up, striving to be at the forefront of reform and opening up for inland pilot free trade zone.

Advancing quickly by small steps

The latest 26 cases accumulated through experience will be submitted to the State Council

Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone has been “advancing quickly by small steps” in its exploration of the open field – rapid implementation with instant results. 

“Over a month has passed since the anniversary of the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone, and new achievements have already been delivered.” The person in charge of the Free Trade Office of Sichuan Province said that 26 cases newly accumulated through experience have been examined and approved by the Third Plenary Meeting of the Leading Group for China (Sichuan) Pilot Free Trade Zone Promotion, and will be submitted to Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference Administration of the Pilot Free Trade Zone Department of the State Council.

Prior to this, 159 reform and testing tasks assigned by the central government have been launched in Sichuan across the board, resulting in more than 200 practical cases. 21 typical experiences have been submitted to the Office of Joint Conference of the State Council. And Sichuan has taken the initiative to generalize these experiences to the whole province. The number of newly added enterprises has totaled 34,000 for the first year in the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone with a registered capital of RMB 400 billion.

We have opened up investment, and implemented the pre-establishment national treatment plus negative list system reform. More than 99% of the foreign-invested enterprises are subject to record management, reducing materials by over 90%. Customs clearance has been facilitated with the creation of the “Internet +” platform for customs registration, creating a “zero cost” port and halving the average customs clearance time of Chengdu. In 2017, the import and export of Chengdu and Luzhou of the Pilot Free Trade Zone had increased by 49.1%. In the first three months of this year, the import and export of Chengdu and Luzhou had increased by 26.1%. The financial market has been opened, launching innovative financial services such as aircraft prepayment financing, opening of foreign letter of guarantee, and cross-border direct loan, which has lowered the threshold for centralized operation of foreign exchange funds of multinational corporations. Coordinated opening-up has been ensured. We have established a cooperation mechanism between Sichuan and Guangdong Pilot Free Trade Zone, and launched the platform with 17 cities including Nansha of Guangdong across the country to deliver government services in different places.

Building the 2.0 version

Sichuan is stepping up the construction of a three-dimensional opening-up pattern across the board

In 2018, the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone will be upgraded to the 2.0 version, leading “across-the-board free trade” in Sichuan, which will help to accelerate the construction of a three-dimensional opening-up pattern.

In terms of institutional innovation, we will decentralize the second batch of provincial-level management authorities, and promote key reform tasks such as the “Internet + Government Services” and comprehensive administrative law enforcement pilots. In terms of two-way investment management system, we will explore the market access negative list system, establish a “one-stop” service platform, and build a China Inspection Experimental Zone at Shuangliu Airport. In terms of financial opening-up, we will strive to launch trials for the domestic and foreign currency account management system, explore the "one bill of lading system" for multimodal transportation and new mode of technology-based financial services, as well as strengthen the supervision of new financial formats such as Internet finance.

The Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone will benchmark against the highest international standards to build an inland free trade port featuring aviation and integrated multimodal transportation of airlines, railway, highway and waterway, and so as to construct the demonstration area for coordinated opening-up between the inland and areas along the borders, rivers, and seas. Within the province, we will establish a number of pilot zones for the coordinated reform of the Pilot Free Trade Zone to share the dividends of free trade reform through institutional integration, platform construction, and industrial collaboration. We launched the activity of “Glamourous Free Trade·Leads an Open Sichuan” to connect with the whole world, and benchmarked against advanced experiences to promote talent cooperation in different domains, integration and collaboration among enterprises, co-construction of project carrier, and business environment optimization.

Profile

Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone

The Zone consists of Chengdu Tianfu New Area, Chengdu Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area, and South Sichuan Port Area, covering an area of 119.99 km2. It is devoted to carry out tasks emphasized by the central government which includes deepening the opening-up pattern of gateway cities in the western region and building a strategic support belt for inland openness, in an effort to forge a highland for inland open economy, and to achieve coordinated development between the inland and areas along the borders, rivers, and seas.