Introduction

2021 marks the 2nd anniversary of the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone. Since its inception in August 2019, the FTZ has benchmarked against advanced international rules and created a new highland of reform that integrates openness and innovation. With great emphasis placed on international investment, foreign trade, financial opening-up, maritime trade, the modern service industry and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, the region has led the nation in high-quality FTZ development.

Institutional innovation

Characteristics:

targeting ASEAN countries;

facilitating the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor;

boosting opening-up along the border;

Exploring differentiated & characteristic system innovation; and

Implementing 95 percent of 120 pilot reform tasks listed in the overall plan.

Forty-four autonomous regional-level institutional innovation achievements were promoted, 13 of which are national initiative achievements.

Reform and innovation on the cross-border usage of renminbi in border areas was selected for the 4th group of the FTZ’s best practical cases.

Five institutional innovation initiatives were filed by the General Administration of Customs, ranking second among the 21 pilot FTZs in China.

Industrial development

As of July 31, nearly 40,000 enterprises had settled in the region. The figure has more than decupled since the establishment of the FTZ.

The integrated development of one advanced manufacturing industry together with multiple modern service industries has been boosted.

Construction of a cross-border industrial chain, a service chain and a value chain targeting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)  countries and developing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership(RCEP) members as well as countries along the Belt and Road has been accelerated.

In the first seven months of 2021, the total imports and exports of the FTZ reached 113.6 billion yuan ($17.58 billion), a year-on-year increase of 25 percent, and the actual use of foreign capital grew by 330 percent to $260 million.
Business environment optimization 

The issuance of the Regulations on the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone made Guangxi a pioneer among the six pilot FTZs in policy formulation and led to improvements in the governance pattern and simplification of the service flow.　　

The negative list for foreign investment has been reduced from 37 to 30. 

Over 95 percent of foreign investment has been filed, and 162 administrative proceedings at the autonomous regional level have been allocated in two groups.

Meanwhile, 545 reform tasks pertaining to operation permits and separate treatment of business license have been fully implemented. 　 

Regulation convergence, institutional innovation and decentralization have upgraded the flows of talents, commodities and capital to a further reciprocal recognition of technologies, standards and rules between the FTZ and ASEAN countries, which has contributed to the construction of a new system for a higher-level open economy and the exploration and implementation of a comprehensive opening-up over a wider range.　

Collaborative guidance

A flat organizational structure which integrates the leading group, construction headquarters, the construction headquarters office and management organizations of each area has been set up, and a working mechanism combining functions of statistical monitoring, matrix supervision, special inspection, performance assessment and third-party evaluation has been built.

Over the past two years, the construction headquarters office has taken the lead in holding 50-odd cloud marketing, cloud investment introduction, cloud signing and China-ASEAN Expo promotion activities.

The office has also guided each area of the FTZ to build professional teams for implementing attractive investment opportunities in leading industries. Over 100 activities were launched in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River Delta region, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Future plan

The Guangxi FTZ will keep institutional innovation as its central task, focus on the construction of five zones and one port in the area, become a high-standard free trade park that takes the lead in opening-up and cooperation between China and ASEAN counties, and facilitate mutual reinforcement of domestic and international economic activity.