Inner Mongolia launches cross-border trade and foreign exchange facilitation reform measures
Recently, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange issued the "Implementation Rules for the Pilot Program of High level Opening up of Cross border Trade" and simultaneously revised the "Guiding Opinions on Carrying out the Pilot Program of Facilitating Foreign Exchange Revenue and Expenditure of High quality Enterprises", marking a new level of reform in Inner Mongolia's cross-border trade foreign exchange facilitation.
The new policy is based on the characteristics of border areas to carry out innovation, incorporating the settlement of net border trade differences into the facilitation policy framework, upgrading the cross-border trade foreign exchange service system, creating a safe, efficient, convenient, and low-cost fund settlement channel for foreign trade entities in the whole region, and fully serving the important gateway construction of China's opening up to the north and the financial innovation of Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone.
Border trade net settlement refers to the offsetting of accounts receivable and payable between border trade enterprises and adjacent countries' same trading counterparts, only for? Net portion? Innovative and convenient model for one-time settlement.
This pilot project is a systematic upgrade of facilitation policies. The high-level opening-up policy for cross-border trade covers five cities including Hohhot, Baotou, Ordos, Alxa, and Chifeng. The special support policy for net settlement of border trade differences is applicable to the entire autonomous region, forming a convenient measure suitable for the coordinated development of inland foreign trade and border economy and trade, promoting the deep integration of financial system innovation and the construction of Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone, and effectively improving the facilitation level of cross-border trade investment and financing in the autonomous region.
The new policy introduces a multi-dimensional facilitation "policy combination punch", which includes seven core measures: firstly, to facilitate the receipt and payment of foreign exchange funds under current account, and streamline the requirements for document submission. The second is to optimize the settlement of new international trade. The third is to expand the scope of net settlement of trade balance. Fourthly, special refund transactions such as overdue goods trade are exempt from prior registration. The fifth is to optimize the management of service trade advance or sharing business. The sixth is to facilitate the use of foreign exchange for the salary of foreign-related employees in high-quality enterprises. The seventh is to simplify the procedures for centralized collection and payment of current account funds and net settlement of netting for multinational corporations.
The new policy has achieved breakthrough optimization in three dimensions: enterprise admission, business coverage, and banking services. On the admission side, the cooperation period between high-tech enterprises, specialized and innovative enterprises, specialized and innovative "little giant" enterprises, and national level manufacturing industry single champion enterprises has been reduced from 2 years to 1 year, allowing high-quality enterprises to enjoy the benefits of facilitation policies faster; On the business model side, in addition to traditional goods trade, new international trade, border trade and other characteristic trade models will be included in policy support; On the server side, pilot banks can independently screen branches and enterprises, flexibly match convenient business types, and improve the accuracy and flexibility of front-line foreign exchange services.
For the vast number of border trade enterprises in the entire region, the biggest highlight of this new policy is the nationwide opening up of net settlement of border trade differences. In the past, border trade enterprises often adopted a full settlement model on a transaction by transaction basis, which resulted in long capital occupation cycles and high exchange costs. The new policy allows general trade and small-scale border trade transactions with neighboring countries to be settled on a net basis, which will effectively reduce the burden and increase efficiency for enterprises.