Written on the occasion of the approval of the China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone
The overall plan for the China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone was released to the public on April 9th.
Building an important gateway for China's northward opening up "- General Secretary Xi Jinping earnestly entrusted during his inspection in Inner Mongolia. The approval of Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone is an important milestone in this strategic deployment.
With the geographical advantage of "connecting eight provinces and the capital, and connecting Russia, Mongolia, and Eurasia", Inner Mongolia's pace of opening up to the outside world has never stopped. In the first two months of this year, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region's foreign trade import and export growth rate ranked third in the country, and its level of opening up continues to rise; The 20 open ports to the outside world shine like pearls on the grassland, and the annual freight volume of land ports has led the way multiple times
Nowadays, the construction of Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone has filled a key link in the layout of pilot free trade zones in northern border areas of China, further improving the national opening-up pattern and consolidating the strategic pivot of opening up to the north.
Release institutional dividends and break through the development bottleneck of "only connecting without gathering"
The phrase 'Looking at Russia and Mongolia at a glance, hearing the crowing of chickens in the Three Kingdoms' is a vivid description of Manzhouli City in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, a small port town located at the border of China, Russia, and Mongolia.
At the Manzhouli railway port, Longmen lifted the drop off containers for orderly loading, and the China Europe freight train sounded its horn and set off for the hinterland of Europe; At the Manzhouli highway port, trucks loaded with imported coal and other energy resources continue to flow, and domestic daily necessities are accelerating their entry into the European market... The vivid trade scene of this small port town reflects the depth and breadth of China's northward opening up.
For a long time, Inner Mongolia has been located on the northern border of the motherland, with a long border and numerous ports, a unique geographical location, and obvious advantages in opening up to the north. But to some extent, it also faces the development bottleneck of prominent channel advantages and insufficient platform support.
Every day, a massive amount of goods transit here, but the added value left for the local area is relatively limited, "said many locals.
This pain point of 'only connecting without gathering' urgently needs to be addressed through profound changes in institutional mechanisms.
Qu Jian, member of the Economic and Trade Policy Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Commerce, Vice President of the Comprehensive Development Research Institute (Shenzhen, China), and President of the Qianhai Branch, stated that the establishment of the Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone means that Inner Mongolia will gain more "ice breaking" authority in institutional opening up.
According to the strategic plan, the Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone covers three areas: Hohhot, Manzhouli, and Erenhot, forming an institutional innovation network with complementary advantages and coordinated development——
Hohhot area serves as a core hub, focusing on characteristic industries and innovative agglomeration;
The Manzhouli area relies on cooperation between China, Russia, and Mongolia to create an important window that radiates Northeast Asia and Europe;
The Erenhot area is deeply cultivating the China Mongolia Russia Economic Corridor and setting a model for friendly cooperation with neighboring countries.
According to Luo Qing, Director of the Department of Commerce of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the overall plan revolves around the strategic positioning and development goals of Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone. It proposes 19 specific measures in 7 areas, including building an important trade node that connects domestic and foreign markets, improving the quality and efficiency of two-way investment cooperation, opening up the international channel to the north, constructing a modern industrial system with distinctive advantages, creating a first-class scientific and technological innovation ecosystem, deepening all-round cooperation with domestic and foreign parties, and creating an open platform for element integration and integration.
Through this series of institutional "soft connectivity", Inner Mongolia is committed to building an information exchange center, transportation and logistics center, factor resource allocation center, key field science and technology innovation center, and industrial cooperation center that connects the inside and outside, radiates to the surrounding areas.
Qu Jian stated that the greatest significance of the approval of Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone is that it has been included in the overall construction layout of the national pilot free trade zone, and has gained the initiative to explore ahead. Inner Mongolia has become a forefront of institutional innovation, which will inject strong impetus into further deepening reform and expanding high-level opening up to the outside world.
Give full play to the hub advantages and accelerate the upgrading of the China Mongolia Russia "golden channel"
Under the towering gates of the country, the sound of the whistle resounded incessantly.
In the first quarter of this year, the key node of the China Europe freight train - the Erenhot Railway Port in Inner Mongolia - saw 1145 China Europe freight trains pass through, a year-on-year increase of 22.3% and a historic high.
Meng Xiangyu, who has been engaged in freight forwarding for 15 years in Erenhot, is full of expectations for the construction of the pilot free trade zone. Port clearance will be faster, logistics will be smoother, and the channel connecting Erenhot to Mongolia to the north will also become more popular, "he said.
The overall plan is clear, opening up the international corridor to the north smoothly, deepening the construction of smart ports in Manzhouli and Erenhot, supporting the construction, operation, maintenance, and upgrading of port infrastructure and inspection facilities, and promoting intelligent supervision between land ports and customs supervision workplaces.
Meng Xiangyu witnessed the rapid development of the China Europe freight train, a "steel camel caravan," from a stumbling start to a busy shuttle: "At the beginning of 2013, only one or two trains crossed the border every month; at its peak, our agency alone could reach seven or eight trains in and out in a single day." Nowadays, the number of China Europe freight trains entering and leaving the Erenhot railway port remains stable at 15 to 16 trains per day, and the goods category has expanded from the early single sheet metal to dozens of categories such as new energy vehicles, household appliances, grain, wood pulp, etc. The value of goods has also greatly increased.
The manifestation of hub dividends is first reflected in the ultimate pursuit of clearance efficiency.
Wang Maili, the head of the Railway Supervision Department of Erlianhaote Customs, also introduced that the port realizes 24-hour appointment clearance. With the support of the export express mode, a train from arriving in Erlianhaote to exiting only takes up to 24 hours. In the past, due to the limitations of manual review mode, most of the procedures related to paper documents were processed during the day. Nowadays, even if the system is submitted late at night, automatic review and instant processing can be achieved. This innovation of intelligent supervision is a microcosm of the improvement of cross-border circulation efficiency in the pilot free trade zone.
The construction of Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone will further activate Inner Mongolia's potential as a hub for opening up to the north, upgrading it from a physical "channel" in the past to an efficient economic "hub".
In the border trade zone operated by Erenhot Yongsheng Investment Co., Ltd., cashmere and horse meat from Mongolia, as well as daily necessities, clothing, and handicrafts from various parts of China, are efficiently traded and circulated here.
The import categories continue to expand, the number of landing processing enterprises is also increasing, and the trade scale is constantly climbing, "said Ye Siyang, the general manager of the company. They eagerly hope that the construction of the free trade pilot zone can further compress the customs clearance process, allow more product categories to enter, and make the" cake "of mutual trade bigger and bigger.
In 2023, the trade volume of border trade zones will exceed 300 million yuan, and by 2025, it will have surpassed 800 million yuan; The number of registered border residents has expanded from the initial four to five thousand to over 15000; The number of landing processing enterprises has rapidly increased from eight or nine to 25.
The Manzhouli Port, another major city in China that opens up to the north, is accelerating its transformation from a "channel economy" to a "landing economy" by leveraging the policy dividends of the pilot free trade zone. Data shows that in 2025, the number of China Europe freight trains entering and exiting through Manzhouli Port under the supervision of Manzhouli Customs will reach 4867, a year-on-year increase of 11.2%; Among them, 2977 return trains were operated, with a year-on-year increase of 21%, ranking first in the country in terms of quantity. In the future, Manzhouli will continue to rely on the Free Trade Zone platform to make efforts in characteristic industries such as cross-border tourism and cross-border finance.
Activate characteristic industries, reshape development engines with new quality productivity
At the wind turbine assembly line of Inner Mongolia New Vision Group Co., Ltd. in Hohhot Economic and Technological Development Zone, workers are rushing to make a batch of orders to France.
The construction of the pilot free trade zone has given us more confidence in turning international projects into more important profit points, "said Liang Minghui, the head of the company's Shaerqin production base. By 2025, the total output value of the company's two factories will exceed 5 billion yuan, and the export map will extend to France, Brazil, Vietnam, and several Central Asian countries. The construction of the pilot free trade zone will further integrate the enterprise into the foreign new energy market.
At the other end of the industrial chain, Inner Mongolia Shuangjie Saidu Electric Co., Ltd., also located in the development zone, is accelerating the layout of the transformer track. This enterprise, which will be put into operation in 2024, has set its sights on the field of ultra-high voltage and plans to build a new factory this year. It plans to expand all its transformer export business to Inner Mongolia. The upgrading of the global new energy grid is a major trend, and the demand for transformers will continue to increase, "said Bao Andi, the company's planning manager. The innovation of the free trade zone system will bring new advantages for enterprises to expand into the global market.
Among the five strategic positioning and mission tasks of Inner Mongolia, the construction of a national important energy and strategic resource base, as well as a national important agricultural and livestock product production base, is of paramount importance. Changing the previous situation of relying on resource-based primary products for exports and comprehensively reshaping the industrial structure is another benefit brought by the Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone.
With the approval of the Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone, we will promote the legal and compliant circulation of data elements internationally, "said Fan Yuxiong, Deputy General Manager of the Inner Mongolia Data Trading Center. Connecting the traceability and logistics data sharing of goods between Russia and Mongolia has become a key exploration direction in the near future.
Traditional industries are undergoing a complete transformation, while emerging industries are breaking ground and emerging here. In the global digital economy wave, Inner Mongolia is actively seizing the computing power track. The Inner Mongolia Data Trading Center is committed to building a solid institutional foundation for computing power to go global. This institution has gathered 1050 enterprises with a cumulative transaction volume of 1.18 billion yuan.
In the forefront of biomedicine, Inner Mongolia Wanrui Biotechnology Co., Ltd. has successfully developed animal serum, a "cell feed," into a best-selling export product in Russia, relying on the abundant local horse resources. Wang Zhen, the Director of Public Affairs of the company, hopes that the pilot free trade zone can further explore the decentralization of administrative approval powers, help enterprises obtain more international authoritative certifications, and seize greater discourse power in the global market.
The vitality of industrial openness is also surging in the field of cross-border e-commerce. Cross border e-commerce enterprise Inner Mongolia Yingshi Shanglian International Trade Co., Ltd. has grown from an annual trade volume of 180000 yuan to 4.8 million yuan in two years, with a target of 60 million yuan this year. The company operates more than 40 online stores on local e-commerce platforms in Russia, with stable new orders every month, "said Mu Jianfang, the company's leader. She looks forward to further opening up more international postal routes through the construction of the Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone, so that goods can avoid detours and leave the country earlier.
Nowadays, 235 enterprises have settled in the China (Hohhot) Cross border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone, with a cumulative export of over 3.2 billion yuan and more than 18 million packages sent to countries such as Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan.
Zhang Yan, the director of Hohhot Customs, stated that Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone will focus on institutional innovation and deeply implement the strategy of upgrading the pilot free trade zone. Customs will actively explore innovative and integrated regulatory systems to contribute to the comprehensive deepening of reform in the new era, especially to promote higher-level opening up of land areas along the border.
The Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone carries the national mission and the hope for regional development. At a new starting point, this fertile land of northern Xinjiang will better serve and integrate into major national strategies, unleash new vitality in accelerating opening up, and write a new chapter in reform, opening up, and border development in the new era.