Support the introduction of a package of facilitation policies to stabilize foreign trade

In order to further promote the facilitation of cross-border trade balance and improve the quality and efficiency of foreign exchange support for the stable development of foreign trade, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange recently issued a notice on further facilitating foreign exchange fund settlement to support the stable development of foreign trade.

The notice proposes to promote the optimization and expansion of facilitation policies. Promote the optimization and expansion of the pilot program for high-level opening up of cross-border trade, and further cover more areas with actual needs, good compliance status of business entities, and in line with the national strategic development direction on the basis of the existing pilot areas. Expand the types of net settlement business for cash flow under the regular account of pilot enterprises, support net settlement of cash flow between goods and transportation, warehousing, maintenance, compensation and other service fees related to goods trade, and reduce cash settlement costs. Further simplify the centralized payment and net settlement procedures for high-quality multinational corporations' current account funds, support banks to handle their current account foreign exchange business conveniently according to the principle of expanding their business, and better release the integrated efficiency of foreign exchange facilitation policies. Support banks to determine the amount of salary settlement and foreign exchange purchase based on the salary materials provided by high-quality enterprises, and facilitate the handling of relevant business for foreign-related employees of enterprises.

Support the healthy development of innovative businesses such as new forms of trade. Give full play to the role of high-quality e-commerce platforms and comprehensive foreign trade service enterprises in recommending and increasing credibility, promote banks to include more small and medium-sized enterprises related to new trade formats in the scope of high-quality enterprises, and apply more convenient trade fund settlement policies. Guide banks to transform traditional document review methods, relying on online generated electronic transaction information such as orders and logistics provided by foreign trade comprehensive service enterprises, and through automatic batch review by the system, to facilitate the processing of foreign exchange payments for new trade entities. Supervise banks to establish a mechanism for handling special foreign exchange transactions under current account, and efficiently handle personalized and complex innovative foreign exchange transactions under current account for domestic institutions with real and legal transaction backgrounds in accordance with the principle of "substance over form".

Improve the efficiency of fund utilization in service trade enterprises. Relax the management of service trade advance business, clarify the collection and payment of goods transportation, warehousing, maintenance and other expenses between domestic enterprises and counterparties, and directly handle relevant fund receipts and payments at banks for convenience. We will support contracted engineering enterprises to allocate and use funds across countries and regions, effectively revitalize the "settling" funds of overseas engineering projects, effectively reduce the financial costs of enterprises, and help high-quality joint construction of the "the Belt and Road".