Shanghai Free Trade Zone shoulders four major missions.
1. Trade liberalization: goods are freely imported, manufactured and re-exported without customs supervision, prohibition and tariff intervention. The purpose of Shanghai is not to be the port with the largest container throughput, but to do entrepot trade and offshore trade. There are two core components, one is to attract the headquarters of multinational companies, and the other is to build a commodity trading platform. The core of offshore trade is to solve the capital control problem of multinational companies. Enterprises in the free trade zone are allowed to set up international fund pools and domestic fund pools, in which interconnection pipelines are designed. This kind of trade means that both the order and the capital link are completed in Shanghai, and the goods may not pass through the port of Shanghai.
The free trade zone will not be made into a container yard, and we will explore dislocation competition and cooperation with the surrounding areas of the Yangtze River Delta. More importantly, promote the development of service trade related to free trade in goods, especially support international commodity trading platforms and shipping financial trading platforms, and allow domestic and foreign enterprises to participate in commodity futures and shipping forward transactions. In FTZ, overseas futures exchanges will be allowed to designate or set up commodity futures delivery warehouses. Once completed, they will replace some functions of LME warehouses in Busan, South Korea and Singapore. These designs will not only promote the development of related service trade and service outsourcing industries (including financial leasing, inspection and maintenance, auditing and accounting). ), it also reduces the threshold and cost of global resource allocation and commodity price risk management for multinational enterprises and contributes to the prosperity of free trade ports.
2. Investment liberalization: full implementation of pre-entry national treatment and negative list management. If it is not prohibited, anything can be done except what the negative list stipulates cannot be done. This is especially for the service industry: financial services, shipping services, commercial services, professional services, social services and cultural services. All six areas are open. Practice has proved that manufacturing and service industries will develop well and become more competitive in all areas that are relatively thorough in opening to the outside world and actively participate in global resource competition and cooperation. Therefore, most investment associations in the free trade zone will implement the filing system, and many restrictions such as foreign shareholding ratio or business scope will be cancelled. It is expected to take the lead in reforming investment project management, establishment and change management of foreign-invested enterprises, and industrial and commercial registration in the pilot area. Shipping, credit reporting, financial leasing, inspection and maintenance, performance brokerage, entertainment culture, education and training, medical care and many other modern production and life services. , will implement fair access standards for domestic and foreign capital, and welcome domestic private capital and overseas direct investment.
In fact, this should also be a preview of the ongoing BIT negotiations between China and the United States. China agreed to hold substantive consultations with the US on the basis of pre-entry national treatment and negative list. For the first time, the "national treatment" of foreign investment was extended to "before entry", instead of relying on the current Catalogue for the Guidance of Foreign Investment Industries for administrative control, it was exchanged for the equivalent and more transparent foreign investment access review process in the United States. This is also meaningful to the institutional reform of China government, aiming at eliminating the examination and approval power of existing government departments and the corresponding setting and rent-seeking ability. In addition, investment is also two-way, and China capital is encouraged to invest overseas directly from FTZ. Perhaps in the free trade zone in the future, foreign investment only needs to be filed. Encourage the establishment of overseas equity investment funds and provide corresponding intermediary services, so as to make the FTZ a platform for China's capital to go global and vigorously promote the "going global" strategy.
Three. Financial internationalization: Its ultimate goal is to promote the internationalization of RMB. One obstacle that must be overcome is the liberalization of capital account control. It is expected that in the free trade zone, investment and trade-related funds can be freely exchanged, and the interest rate and exchange rate are determined by the market. Actively explore international foreign exchange management reform pilots and establish a foreign exchange management system suitable for free trade zones. At the same time, qualified foreign-funded financial institutions are allowed to set up foreign-funded banks, and private capital and foreign-funded financial institutions jointly set up Sino-foreign joint venture banks (with limited licenses). Encourage them to establish a comprehensive trading platform and fully liberalize product innovation. Financial institutions in the free trade zone can also issue bonds overseas, and they can borrow from enterprises in the free trade zone after recovering their funds, thus breaking through the existing loan-to-deposit ratio limit. At the same time, change the foreign debt management mode of enterprises in the free trade zone, and strive to realize centralized operation of foreign exchange funds in order to establish a global fund management center for multinational enterprises.
The financial development vision of the future free trade zone is great. First, the functions of free trade and offshore finance in Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau, Switzerland, Cayman Islands and Virgin Islands will be initially realized, and qualified Chinese banks in the region will be allowed to engage in offshore business. At the same time, it is considered to cultivate an onshore and offshore financial center (international board) with the help of the design of international banking facilities (IBF) similar to new york and JOM in Tokyo, and then partially open up the offshore and onshore markets by establishing appropriate channels and pipelines (which can be lines, regions, account types, transaction types, etc.). ), so as to achieve limited interconnection, allow funds to penetrate each other within a certain range or limit, and establish a separate infiltration type (one-way first and then two-way) on the premise of risk control and efficiency improvement, and finally form a real global financial center similar to London, with all-round penetration and internal and external integration.
4. Administrative simplification: FTZ will implement a new innovative regulatory service model of "full opening of the first line, safe and efficient management of the second line, and free flow of goods in the region". "First line" refers to national boundaries, and "thoroughness" is constantly emphasized. Therefore, an important task in the construction of free trade zone is to simplify the complexity and reduce the administrative cost in the existing opening pilot, and to provide an effective way to integrate the existing special customs supervision zones. It can be predicted that in the future, all the market administrative functions such as quality inspection, industry and commerce will be integrated into one institution, and the financial supervision scattered in one line and three meetings may be merged with only one HKMA, and the real reform of the Ministry system can be completely realized in the pilot area. Its ultimate goal is to establish a centralized and unified market supervision system, transform government functions, improve administrative transparency, conduct local legislative experiments, and fulfill the function of protecting investors' rights and interests. This is a brand-new ruling idea of "small government" and the latest attempt to clarify the optimal boundary between market and government.