Constructing an open "geese formation" pattern from "1" to "23" free trade pilot zones
Recently, the overall plan for the China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone was officially released, adding an important sub to the map of China's pilot free trade zones, expanding the total number to 23.
Previously, since the establishment of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone in September 2013, the State Council has approved the establishment of 3, 7, 1, 6, 3, and 1 pilot free trade zones in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2023, respectively.
After nearly 13 years of development, China's pilot free trade zones have moved from single point breakthroughs to comprehensive coordination, forming an open "geese formation" pattern that coordinates coastal areas, inland areas, and border areas, covering the east, west, north, south, and central regions. The layout logic has shifted from early quantity expansion to quality improvement and differentiated development. At the same time, each pilot free trade zone, with institutional openness as its core, continues to release momentum in stabilizing foreign trade, attracting foreign investment, promoting innovation, and optimizing industries, becoming a key support for building a new development pattern and promoting high-quality economic development.
Global collaborative momentum:
The layout of the geese formation is perfect, opening up new horizons
From the banks of the Huangpu River to the grasslands of northern Xinjiang, from the eastern coast to the western inland, 23 pilot free trade zones have been developed in a staggered manner, outlining a new open landscape of linkage between land and sea regions and mutual assistance between the east and the west.
Fu Yifu, a special researcher at Su Shang Bank, told Securities Daily reporters that in 2013, Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone was the first to explore and act as the "leading goose". Since then, the 22 pilot free trade zones added in seven batches have formed the "goose body" and "two wings", forming an open map with gradient promotion and complementary functions. Among them, coastal areas benchmark international high standard economic and trade rules, while inland areas focus on undertaking industrial transfer and cultivating an open economy, forming a stable "goose body"; The border areas serve as the 'two wings', connecting Central Asia, South Asia, and Northeast Asia respectively, consolidating the pivot of openness.
In Fu Yifu's view, the establishment of the Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone has filled the gap in the opening up of the northern border areas. With Hohhot, Manzhouli, and Erenhot as the pivot points, it has created an important bridgehead for opening up to the north, making the geese formation more connected and coordinated.
This geese formation is not simply a spatial layout, but a clear functional division of labor with strategic orientation. Professor Chen Jianwei from the National Institute of Opening up at the University of International Business and Economics stated in an interview with Securities Daily that in terms of geographical coverage, it has achieved all-round coverage from the initial launch along the eastern coast to the inland hinterland, and then to the border ports, realizing the linkage between land and sea regions; In terms of functional positioning, the 23 pilot free trade zones have formed a leading goose driven and multi support system through staggered development, effectively resolving the problem of uneven regional openness; In a strategic sense, this layout aims to transform the dividends of openness into a systematic improvement of the overall competitiveness of the country through the spillover effects of institutional innovation.
Institutional innovation breaks the deadlock:
Building a core driving force for opening up to the outside world
As the "experimental field" and "vanguard" of the reform and opening up in the new era, the core value of the pilot free trade zone lies in using institutional innovation to break through institutional and mechanism barriers, and leading institutional opening through trial and error.
In the past 13 years, various pilot free trade zones have adhered to bold experimentation, innovation, and independent reform, focusing on key areas such as trade and investment facilitation, financial openness and innovation, government function transformation, and cross-border data flow. They have replicated and promoted 485 institutional innovation achievements of pilot free trade zones at the national level.
Fu Yifu stated that in recent years, pilot free trade zones have taken the lead in breakthroughs in investment, trade, finance, government regulation, and other fields. One is to implement negative list management, significantly reduce foreign investment access restrictions, and enhance policy transparency and predictability; Secondly, we will promote trade facilitation reforms, such as the "single window" for international trade and integrated customs clearance, to significantly reduce transaction costs for enterprises; The third is to explore financial openness and innovation, including cross-border use of RMB and simplification of foreign exchange management. After evaluation, these institutional innovation achievements are replicated and promoted nationwide, forming a virtuous cycle.
Song Xiangqing, Vice President of the China Society of Business Economics, told Securities Daily reporters that at the level of opening up to the outside world, the pilot free trade zone actively connects with international high standard economic and trade rules, takes the lead in relaxing access to service industry, digital trade and other fields, and conducts stress tests in investment, intellectual property, data flow and other fields, providing mature experience and demonstration samples for deepening reform and expanding opening up, and driving the overall improvement of regional opening up level.
Taking the newly established Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone as an example, it focuses on opening up to the north and clarifies 19 reform and innovation measures, including innovative development of border trade, strengthening international logistics service functions, improving the efficiency of scientific and technological achievements transformation and application, and expanding external exchanges in multiple fields. It activates the "hard connectivity" of ports through institutional "soft connectivity" to smooth the China Mongolia Russia economic corridor. At the same time, based on the local resource advantages, a series of pilot tasks have been proposed, including the construction of a global lactic acid bacteria germplasm resource bank, the establishment of a grass industry technology innovation center, the development of intelligent manufacturing equipment for the dairy industry, support for the construction of edge computing centers in Manzhouli and Erenhot, support for the construction of a digital service export public service platform in Hohhot, and exploration of providing cross-border computing services.
Song Xiangqing stated that through integrated and innovative reforms, each pilot free trade zone has broken down barriers to factor flow, promoted efficient allocation of funds, technology, talent, data, and other resources. This not only enhances its own level of openness, but also drives the optimization of the national business environment through innovation spillover effects, becoming the core engine driving the improvement and upgrading of opening up to the outside world.
Empowering the real economy:
Supporting high-quality economic development
The pilot free trade zone has always adhered to serving the real economy, promoting reform and development through opening up, and making outstanding contributions in cultivating new driving forces, optimizing industrial structure, and stabilizing the overall economy.
Chen Jianwei believes that the pilot free trade zone has opened up the pain points and bottlenecks in the real economy cycle through institutional opening. At the level of resource allocation, its unique trade facilitation and financial openness policies have significantly reduced the institutional transaction costs of manufacturing industry participation in the global industrial chain; At the level of industrial agglomeration, each pilot free trade zone relies on its localization advantages to precisely cultivate strategic emerging industry clusters such as biomedicine and integrated circuits, achieving the transformation of policy support into industrial competitiveness; In terms of innovation traction, free trade zones are not only experimental fields for policies, but also incubators for the integration and development of advanced manufacturing and modern service industries, continuously injecting endogenous power into the real economy.
Standing at a new starting point, the open geese formation consisting of 23 pilot free trade zones has entered a new stage of quality improvement from scale expansion.
Song Xiangqing stated that the next step is to focus on high-end manufacturing, digital trade, and financial openness in coastal areas, and create benchmarks for openness; Deeply cultivate land trade rules, multimodal transport, and industrial synergy in inland areas; Border areas focus on cross-border logistics, energy cooperation, and border economy and trade, creating regional open gateways. In the future, each pilot free trade zone will focus on its location endowment and industrial foundation, deepen differentiation, specialization, and precision exploration, and become a "stabilizer" for high-quality economic development.
Chen Jianwei believes that in the next step, the construction of China's pilot free trade zones will move towards the stage of institutional integration and innovation. In terms of differentiation exploration, each region will focus more on its own location endowment, such as Inner Mongolia focusing on opening up to the north and Hainan focusing on the characteristics of free ports, to avoid resource mismatch caused by homogeneous competition; In terms of regional collaboration, cross regional institutional linkage and experience replication will become the norm, promoting the formation of a deep open network under the unified national market through point, line, and surface coupling; In terms of strategic vision, the 23 pilot free trade zones will jointly build a forefront position that benchmarks international high standard economic and trade rules, leading China to participate in international division of labor and global cooperation at a higher and deeper level.