Importance of economic opening-up highlighted at key political meeting

Openness is a distinctive feature of Chinese-style modernization, according to the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that was held from July 15 to 18.

The meeting, which saw the adoption of the resolution on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization, said it is essential to uphold the fundamental national policy of opening-up, promote reform through opening-up and develop a new system for a higher-level open economy.

Responding to the instruction, Beijing plans to capitalize on the advantages of overlapping policies by constructing the Integrated National Demonstration Zone for Opening-up the Services Sector and the China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone.

The Chinese capital will also align with high-level international economic and trade rules to create a "Beijing model" of reform and opening-up, focusing on technological innovation, the digital economy, opening-up of its services sector and the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, said officials from the city's commerce bureau.

Since institutional innovation is a main theme of Beijing to build the "two zones", it has implemented more than 50 pioneering policies nationwide over the past few years.

They include streamlined approval processes for high-tech enterprises and preferential income tax policies for cross-border e-commerce players to import pharmaceutical products and transfer technologies.

For example, when construction of the "two zones" kicked off in 2020, Ueda Yagi Money Broking (China) was given the green light, becoming China's first wholly foreign-owned money brokerage to be established in the Chinese mainland. It took about 13 months, between May 2020 and June 2021, for this new company to obtain approval for business, a process which used to take four to five years.

After witnessing the changes in China's financial industry, Huang Hong, the company's president, said: "We are full of confidence in the opening-up and high-quality development of China's financial industry, and look forward to further expanding the Chinese money brokerage market."

On July 16, the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau released an implementation plan for deepening the opening-up of the services sector and promoting foreign investment.

It proposed 15 specific measures centering on such key areas as telecommunications, data, medical care, green development and environmental protection, to continuously open up more sectors to foreign investment.

For instance, in the Integrated National Demonstration Zone for Opening-up the Services Sector, Beijing will remove foreign ownership restrictions in certain areas, including internet data centers, content delivery networks, internet service providers, online data processing and transaction processing. It will also remove foreign investment limits in information services, such as information publishing platforms and delivery services, and information protection and processing services.

The plan also supports qualified foreign doctors and those from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan to set up clinics in Beijing; allows eligible medical institutions to conduct clinical trials of stem cell treatments; and assist international cooperation in the research and development of stem cell and gene therapies.

Piao Xuedong, director of the city's commerce bureau, said the construction of the "two zones" has brought more innovative industrial policies for foreign enterprises and created a high-quality and efficient business development environment with impressive services.

Over nearly four years, Beijing has attracted more than 100 multinational companies to establish foreign-funded R&D centers. It has the largest number of Fortune Global 500 companies' headquarters in the world. Also, more than 6,000 foreign enterprises have explored business opportunities in the city during the period.

Additionally, Beijing has established 17 "two zones" liaison offices overseas, offering services to more than 1,000 enterprises through international business associations worldwide.

haonan@chinadaily.com.cn