2018 marks the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, and it is the first year to fully implement the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress. Over the past year, MOFCOM has adhered to the guidance of President Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and thoroughly implemented the important reforms and plans of the report delivered at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. With the spirit of “driving nails” and "embroidering", we have made a new development and new progress in comprehensively deepening the reform in the business sector, thus making new contributions to building a well-off society in an all-round way and promoting the high-quality development of the economy.
(1) The first China International import Expo was successfully held.
The holding of the China International import Expo is a major decision made by the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core to promote a new round of high-level opening up. It is a major initiative for China to open its market to the world. On November 5-10, the first China International import Expo was successfully held in Shanghai.President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote speech, highlighting China's confidence, determination, and responsibility to promote a higher level of openness, promote the construction of an open world economy, and promote the building of a community of a shared future for mankind, gaining wide praise from the international community. The first CIIE became the most extensive and largest home-based diplomatic event in the country in 2018. A total of 172 countries, regions and international organizations participated in the expo, and more than 400 foreign guests above the ministerial level attended the event. The first CIIE became a world-class exhibition. 3,617 overseas companies including more than 220 Fortune 500 companies and leading enterprises in the industry participated in it. More than 800,000 people came to negotiate purchase and have visiting experience, with a turnover of US$57.8 billion. The guests from all walks of life gathered in the Hongqiao International Economic and Trade Forum and made the "Hongqiao Voice". The first CIIE was a complete success. This is an important practice of Xi Jinping's Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. It is a practical move to promote the building of a community of a shared future for mankind and a milestone in the opening up of a new era.
(2) Construct free trade pilot zones with high standards.
Focus on building a new highland for opening up. We reported to the State Council to issue further plans to deepen the reform and opening up of the Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian free trade pilot zones and the overall plan for the Hainan Free Trade Zone, promote the establishment of a free trade pilot zone in Hainan Island, and promote the formation of a reform and opening up and innovation pattern of “1+3+7+1” covering all areas. We promoted the introduction of a number of measures to support the deep reform and innovation of the free trade pilot zones, and the new edition of the negative list of foreign investment in the free trade pilot zones. We further strengthened the openness stress test in the fields of telecommunications, agriculture and culture. The reform and innovation of the respective trade pilot zones have achieved remarkable results, and 30 new pieces of experience were summarized and copied to the whole country. At the 5th anniversary of the construction of the Pilot Free Trade Zone, General Secretary Xi Jinping made important instructions: In the past five years, each of the trade pilot zones has conscientiously implemented the decisions and plans of the CPC Central Committee. They forged ahead to made breakthroughs, making significant progress and promoting a large number of institutional innovations to the whole country. They have played the role as the experimental field of comprehensively deepening reform.
(3) Explore the construction of free trade ports with Chinese characteristics.
Supporting Hainan's gradual exploration and steadily promoting the construction of the free trade ports with Chinese characteristics is a major decision made by the CPC Central Committee , after a thorough consideration of the international and domestic development, in-depth research, comprehensive balancing and scientific planning. MOFCOM has attached great importance to it, systematically sorted out the experience of international free port construction, organized experts and scholars to conduct discussions, organized forces to speed up the study of the policy and institutional system for the step-by-step, phased construction of Hainan Free Trade Port, and solidly promoted the process of building a free trade port with Chinese characteristics.
(4) Implement high level trade and investment liberalization and facilitation policies.
MOFCOM has fully promoted the in-depth practice announced General Secretary Xi Jinping at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference and China International import Expo. We reported to and asked the State Council to issue certain measures for actively and effectively utilizing foreign capital to promote high-quality economic development, and accelerate the implementation of the policies that have been introduced. The market access was greatly relaxed, and the national version of the negative list of foreign investment was revised. The items in the list of entries were reduced from 63 to 48. The commercial filing and industrial and commercial registration of foreign-funded enterprises in the country could be done in one place, which further shortens the time for setting up enterprises and simplifies the procedures. We improved the complaints working mechanism of foreign-funded enterprises, and coordinated and solved outstanding problems reflected by enterprises. We actively promoted the review of foreign investment law legislation, actively fulfilled the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, established a joint mechanism for local trade facilitation, and promoted the effectiveness of the “single window” construction of international trade. According to the World Bank's Business Environment Report in 2019, China's overall ranking jumped from 78th place last year to 46th one this year, and the business environment has been improved significantly.
(5) New models of cross-border e-commerce and other new trade formats to achieve innovative development.
Adhere to the problem orientation and explore the establishment of an institutional mechanism to promote the innovative development of new trade formats such as cross-border e-commerce. The basic policy framework for cross-border e-commerce development centered on the “six systems and two platforms” was further improved, and 36 pieces of experience in 12 aspects were summarized and reproduced. The third batch of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test zones was set up in 22 cities including Beijing to promote the development of cross-border e-commerce in a wider scale. Advance and improve the policy of the “no ticket exemption” of the value-added tax of cross-border e-commerce retail exports to promote the sunny development of the industry. The post-supervision program for transitional cross-border e-commerce retail imports was introduced and the scope of its application was expanded to stabilize market expectations and promote the healthy development of the industry. Relying on the single window of international trade, the nationwide version of the cross-border e-commerce online comprehensive service platform was built and promoted and applied nationwide to build a more efficient and convenient soft environment. A fourth batch of pilot mart procurement projects at 6 marts was established to enhance the facilitation of mart procurement trade. The management methods for foreign trade comprehensive service enterprises were promoted and improved, and got favorable comments from regions and enterprises.
