At the end of August, Sichuan has successively issued relevant documents for the construction of the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone. The people’s government of Sichuan province has printed and issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Leading Engineering Construction of the China (Sichuan) Free Trade Pilot Zone which proposed the target to build Sichuan into a world-class high-quality free trade zone by 2022. The General Office of the Provincial Government issued the Implementation Plan for the Construction of the Pilot Area for Collaborative Reform of the China (Sichuan) Pilot Free Trade Zone which proposed the target to cultivate 15 pilot areas for collaborative reform by 2020.
The Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone plays a leading role in driving others to advance toward the goal of building a high-level platform for three-dimensional opening-up featuring "Four-direction Expansion and Across-the-Board Opening-up ".
Relying on the advantage of “locating near the air, railway and river”
Greatly enhancing connectivity
On August 28th, at the Chengdu Qingbaijiang International Railway Port, the China Railway Express (Chengdu) was fully loaded with weaving works of art by banian and crape myrtle, flower and tree products of Chinese orchid and others, transporting them from Wenjiang to countries and regions along the “Belt and Road” such as the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey.
The opening of the China Railway Express (Chengdu) has greatly facilitated the export of products. Mr. Duan Tao, General Manager of Chengdu APR Joint Greening Investment Corporation Limited, said that it took 40 days to transport the flowers and trees from the coastal ports to Europe by sea, but now it can be transported to the terminal in 15 days by the China Railway Express (Chengdu), greatly compressing the time needed, which will promote the upgrading of flower and trees industry in Wenjiang.
The Chengdu Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area of the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone has improved its level of connectivity and built a large open channel linking the west and the south. At present, the westbound China Railway Express (Chengdu) has opened five international strategic channels, connecting 19 overseas cities and 14 domestic ones. The southbound trains including the ASEAN trains of the "Chengdu-Europe Express Railway" via Qinzhou of Guangxi, and the international multimodal railway in Hanoi of Vietnam are in steady operation, and are accelerating the construction of a cooperation platform with Guangxi Beibu Gulf, COSCO Shipping and Hong Kong Sunwah Group.
Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area receives no special treatment. Sichuan Province is also making great efforts to enhance the level of connectivity in the construction of the Pilot Free Trade Zone by utilizing its advantage of “locating near the air, railway and river”. Up to now, the number of international (regional) routes of Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport has reached 106, with its annual cross-border passenger traffic volume exceeding 5 million. The Chengdu International Railway Port has realized connectivity with 16 overseas cities and 14 domestic cities in Asia and Europe. As of July 30th, the China Railway Express (Chengdu) has operated 615 trains, ranking the first in the country, accounting for 1/4 of the national total. Luzhou Port opened near-sea lanes linking directly to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Its container throughput has been increased by more than 20% in the first half of the year.
Measures for “slimming” and acceleration have intensified institutional innovations and optimized the business environment
On August 29th, Mr. Zeng Xuelin was handling businesses at the General Service Hall of the South Sichuan Port Area of the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone. Not long ago, he established the Luzhou Maker Service Company Limited and registered the enterprise here. As a company manager, Zeng Xueyan had been deeply impressed by the convenience today. "Just within less than an hour, the overall businesses of the company were finished."
It would take 3 working days to conclude but now less than 6 hours would be sufficient. The reporter learned from the Administrative Examination and Approval Authority of the South Sichuan Port Area that this convenience is the result of the trial implementation of the hour list for starting businesses in the country, enabling the further “slimming” of the submitted materials of enterprises, thus accelerating the efficiency of administrative examination and approval. Since April 20th of this year, 972 companies in the South Sichuan Port Area have completed registration through this model, and the longest time spent for company registration through tax registration was only 18 hours.
The South Sichuan Port Area has continuously optimized its business environment and has made 150 innovation achievements, among which the 18 systems including “priority for handling the export rebates for manufacturing enterprises” and the “hour list for starting businesses” are the pioneering measures in the country. The efficient service model for customs clearance at ports was introduced, reducing the import and export customs clearance time at Luzhou Port by 81% and 57% respectively. The Sichuan Tianfu New Area and the South Sichuan Port Area of Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone have jointly built a “land port”, sharing preferential policies such as export rebates, bonded goods circulation, and integrated customs clearance at ports.
The province has implemented the Negative List for the Access of Foreign Investment in the Pilot Free Trade Zone across the board, reducing the filing materials needed for foreign-invested enterprises by more than 90%. Over 160 enterprises have been registered by the “single window” of international trade, maintaining a full coverage of inspection. A new model of inspection and quarantine supervision for international convention and exhibition has been created and launched, supporting the development of Sichuan convention & exhibition economy. “15 facilitation measures” for foreigners and business personnel in the Pilot Free Trade Zone were introduced. 46 applications for permanent residence in China have been handled in the first half year, and the time for issuing a second travel endorsement for group travelers from Hong Kong and Macao was compressed from 5 working days to two minutes.
Steady drivers and linkages contribute to building a multilevel opening-up pattern
The Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone endeavors to build a multidimensional and multilevel opening-up pattern while focusing on the positioning and tasks assigned by the state.
We have enhanced the driving effect of the industry. In the first half year, committed to attracting strong, new and high-level investments, Chengdu has signed contracts and introduced 270 major projects, representing a year-on-year increase of over 40%, with a total investment of RMB 426.593 billion. As of the end of June, 31,900 enterprises have been set up in Chengdu Tianfu New Area and Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area with an added registered capital of RMB 417.629 billion, of which 85% of the newly-added foreign-invested enterprises belong to high-end service industry. Luzhou aims to foster strong growth drivers of industrial concentration, and devote efforts to develop port-oriented industries such as shipping logistics, port trade and advanced manufacturing. It has built the Luzhou Shipping Logistics Exchange, and actively carried out bulk trades of grain, timber and stone. We have undertaken the transfer of eastern coastal industries and introduced 61 intelligent terminal projects and 22 of which have been put into production. Aerospace has been developing rapidly. We have cooperated with Beihang, Tsinghua and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation to build a research & development, trail & production base for aero engines.
Joint reform in various areas is to be strengthened. We have deepened cooperation of regional ports, continued to consolidate the international multimodal transportation featuring highway-railway, railway-waterway, and airway-railway-highway, and strived to promote the integrated development of logistics at Qingbaijiang Railway Port, Shuangliu Airport and Luzhou Water Port, and supported Chengdu International Railway Port, Luzhou Port and Yibin Port to establish national open ports.
The coordinated reform of “3 Areas + N Parks” has been promoted. We have deepened the coordinated reform of the Pilot Free Trade Zone with that of Yibin, Zigong, Ziyang, Deyang and other places, actively promoted system integration and platform sharing, built a number of pilot areas for collaborative reform through exploration, and supported the pilot areas to take the lead in undertaking economic management authority and enjoying the institutional achievements of reform within the provincial management authority. We have promoted the co-construction and sharing in various regions of Chengdu, promoting the collaboration between Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport and Tianfu International Airport, as well as between Chengdu's national-level airport economic demonstration zone and international airport newcity.
In addition, Sichuan Province has constructed a number of collaborative open demonstration zones, established a cooperation mechanism for the Sichuan-Guangdong Pilot Free Trade Zone, and launched the pioneering platform with 17 cities across the country to deliver government services in different places.
