Tianjin Haihe Media Group:

The third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee proposed to implement a strategy for upgrading pilot free trade zones and encouraged these zones to engage in pioneering and integrated explorations. How have the free trade pilot zones progressed this year? What explorations will be carried out in the next step? Thank you.

Li Yongjie:

I'll ask Mr. Zhu to answer your questions.

Zhu Bing:

"Implement the strategy for upgrading pilot free trade zones and encourage these zones to engage in pioneering and integrated explorations" -- we interpret "upgrading" and "exploration" here as further improving the construction quality of pilot free trade zones on the basis of the construction achievements of the past ten years, strengthening the function of the comprehensive experimental platform for reform and opening up, giving better play to the pioneering spirit of community-level organizations, paying more attention to the system integration of reform, and daring to brave uncharted waters and solve difficult problems, so as to accumulate new experience for comprehensively deepening reform and opening up. In September of last year, General Secretary Xi Jinping issued important instructions on deepening the construction of the pilot free trade zones (FTZs). The MOFCOM has carefully studied and implemented the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping, accelerated the implementation of strategies to upgrade FTZs and has made progress in four aspects:

First, the pilot alignments have been promoted across the board. The pilot measures for the first batch of qualified FTZs and free trade ports (FTPs) to align with high-standard international economic and trade rules that promote institutional opening up have been fully implemented, and the overall plan for the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone to fully dovetail with high-standard international economic and trade rules is also being accelerated. A number of projects and demonstration cases have been formed for importing remanufactured products in key industries and for supporting overseas personnel to provide professional services.

Second, the opening up of services has been steadily expanded. We have issued and implemented a negative list of cross-border trade in services in the FTZs, and have cooperated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to expand foreign investment access in the telecommunications sector within the Shanghai Pilot FTZ and other regions, continuously improving the opening up of the service sector.

Third, breakthroughs have been made in key areas. We have worked with the Cyberspace Administration of China and other departments to support pilot free trade zones in formulating a negative list for cross-border data flows under the framework of the national data classification and hierarchical protection system. Currently, pilot FTZs in Tianjin, Shanghai and other areas are actively promoting relevant explorations.

Fourth, the benefits of innovation have been continuously released. We have released and promoted 47 institutional achievements with innovation as well as have promoted 349 items at the national level, effectively utilizing the demonstration and leading role of the comprehensive experimental platform for reform and opening up. In the first half of 2024, the actual use of foreign capital in the 22 pilot FTZs reached 103.96 billion yuan, and the total value of imports and exports reached 4.1 trillion yuan. Covering less than 0.4% of China's total land area, the 22 pilot FTZs attracted 20.8% of the country's total foreign investments and contributed 19.5% to national imports and exports.

Next, the MOFCOM will implement the guiding principles of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, promote pilot FTZs to carry out preliminary trials and to integrate exploration in a wider and deeper range of areas, and contribute to further deepening reform comprehensively as well as advancing Chinese modernization.

First, we will strengthen overall planning and system integration, enhancing the function of the comprehensive experimental platform for reform and opening up. We will further develop reform in a systematic, holistic and coordinated way by focusing on in-depth implementation strategies for the upgrading of pilot FTZs. At present, we are studying and formulating a comprehensive document on implementation strategies for the upgrading of pilot FTZs. We will launch a number of leading and integrated reform measures to explore more successful experiences that can be replicated and promoted for deepening reform comprehensively.

Second, we will deepen alignment with international high-standard economic and trade rules, raising the level of institutional opening up. In terms of aligning with rules, we will ensure the successful implementation, evaluation and replication of pilot projects in FTZs that seek to align with international high-standard economic and trade rules, aiming to help release policy dividends on a larger scale. At the same time, we will strengthen forward-looking research on these rules and conduct new pilot tests in areas such as property rights protection, the environment, government procurement, e-commerce and finance to achieve compatibility in rules, regulations, management and standards. Regarding the opening up of key areas, we will conduct in-depth research on further expanding the opening up of commodity, service and capital markets by relying on FTZs. We will use the two negative lists for foreign investment access and cross-border service trade as essential tools to expedite the opening up of relevant service sectors.

Third, we will strengthen integrated innovation across the entire industry chain, enhancing the development momentum of new quality productive forces. We will support FTZs to further deepen differentiated exploration, fully leveraging their advantages of a sound industrial foundation, high-level aggregation and strong innovation capabilities. We will promote innovative development throughout the entire industry chain by focusing on key areas such as bulk commodities, biomedicine, equipment manufacturing and the marine economy. We aim to achieve more institutionalized innovative outcomes in developing new quality productive forces.

That's all from me, thanks.