TRADE FACILITATION
Trade facilitation is another area of progress in China's FTZs. In early September, the customs clearance time for imported garments only took three hours and 40 minutes, creating a new record for airborne logistics within the Shanghai FTZ.
Thanks to 31 new supervision rules, the average customs clearance time at the Shanghai FTZ for inbound and outbound cargo has been reduced by 78.5 percent and 31.7 percent compared with that outside the FTZ.
The overall costs for customs clearance were reduced by about 30 percent and the time reduced substantially in Tianjin, Hebei and Beijing after customs services for the three places were integrated.
The average customs clearance efficiency in the four FTZs was enhanced by about 40 percent, said Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng.
NEW MAP OF OPENING UP
The newly-approved FTZs have different emphases. Liaoning Province in northeast China, for example, will focus on market-oriented reforms to make the old industrial base more competitive.
The northeastern region is in urgent need of opening up and the FTZ in Liaoning will play a key role in this regard, said Chi Fulin, director of China Institute for Reform and Development.
Hubei will focus on the high-tech sector and support the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, while the FTZs in Chongqing, Sichuan and Shaanxi, all in the less developed west, will help develop the regions.
Chongqing FTZ will be an inland hub for service trade and international logistics, said Mayor Huang Qifan.
The FTZs are a symbol of the new round of opening up, featuring more emphasis on an open and improved market economy, especially in terms of rules, said Tong Jiadong, head of the China FTZ Research Center at Tianjin-based Nankai University.
Over the past three years, the FTZs have helped transform government functions, enhanced efficiency and formed a law-based market economy environment, said Tong, who is also vice president of Nankai University.
Tong's remarks have been echoed by various domestic and foreign research institutions or firms. Some foreign enterprises expect the negative list to be shortened further and differentiated opening of some fields such as cloud computing.
The opening of the financial sector in China's FTZs still lags behind typical international FTZ practice, said Tong.
"To liberalize trade, investment and finance is a typical function of FTZs, and we still have more to do in this aspect," he said.
