介绍:
More than one year after the launch of the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, China has decided to expand the experiment by setting up new versions in Guangdong, Fujian and Tianjin.
Since the zone was launched in September 2013, it has become an important aspect of China's plan to enhance international trade and investment, and boost the domestic financial service sector. It is also been a testing ground for long-anticipated financial reforms.
Plans to launch more FTZs in the southern province of Guangdong, the eastern province of Fujian and the northern port city of Tianjin were approved by the country's legislature in December. Experts say the new zones, based in the economic hubs of the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and Bohai region, will supplement the Shanghai FTZ and reflect the central government's desire to provide more policy support to the coastal region to deepen reforms.
The plans for the zones have almost been settled, and each has different features according to its geographic advantage, the sources said. However, the pilot measures for capital account liberalization applied to the Shanghai FTZ will not immediately be expanded to other regions.
Feng Xiaoyun, economics professor at Jinan University in Guangzhou, said the Guangdong FTZ is being positioned to further enhance the province's cooperation with Hong Kong and Macau, and serve as a hub for a central government initiative called the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which is intended to connect China with Southeast Asian countries, Africa and Europe.
