At the "14th Five-Year" Special Planning Series Press Conference (Business Development Session) held in Fujian on 18th, it was announced that China (Fujian) Pilot Free Trade Zone will focus on developing pillar industries to build special economic function zones with global influence during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period. Efforts will be made to innovate, upgrade, open up and develop major industrial chains and supply chains through accumulating high-quality elements and high-end resources. Ultimately, Fujian FTZ will be built into a key business hub with strong attraction, innovation capacity, influence and competitiveness, embracing even more international economic cooperation and fostering new competitive advantages. It’s expected that eight platforms worth over ten billion RMB and two hundred-billion-yuan platforms with quite strong domestic influence will be built before 2025.

As Yang Jiandong, Director of Free Trade Comprehensive Coordination Office, Fujian Provincial Department of Commerce introduced, implementation measures mainly include the following:

First, build bigger and stronger major platforms with local features. Fujian FTZ will join the domestic-international dual circulation and facilitate the industrial transformation and upgrade through “building”, “enhancing” and “upgrading” the core links in industrial and supply chains as well as cutting-edge areas. Priority should be given to building platforms such as IoT and bases of aircraft maintenance, imported cubilose and wine as well as cultural exports. Such efforts will create new engines for Fujian to accelerate the building of a modern economic system and foster a bigger, stronger industrial cluster.

Second, create and foster new business activities and models. Fujian FTZ will vigorously develop strategic emerging industries and modern service sectors and facilitate the development of new business activities and models such as the integrated circuit (IC), cross-border e-commerce and offshore trade, and pinpoint new impetus for high-quality growth. For example, in terms of the R&D and design of IC and AI, the focus will be on upgrading policy environments and improving public services across the whole industrial chain so as to build an IC supply chain covering the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. Another example is to further upgrade the online comprehensive services of cross-border e-commerce and the building of offline industrial parks by leveraging the policy advantages enjoyed by the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot area. Besides, through encouraging innovation in offshore trade businesses, banks will be supported to explore ways to upgrade the system to monitor the authenticity of businesses and provide premium financial services for companies to carry out authentic offshore trade activities with regulatory compliance. In this way, the facilitation of trade settlement can be boosted.

Third, speed up the construction of the digital FTZ. The development of the digital FTZ should be accelerated by combining the innovation of the supply chain with the building of demonstrative cities. A group of digital infrastructure, trade, service and industry projects will be hatched to provide an even stronger driving force for high-quality development and foster new economic growth points. The construction of "smart ports" will be further facilitated, combined with the application of hi-techs such as AI, 5G and blockchains and the renovation and upgrade of ports. Ultimately, a fully intelligent new system for port logistics will be launched.

Source:www.fjsen.com