Shanghai FTZ model to expand nationwide

BEIJING - The success of Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone in transforming Government functions, facilitating investment and trade, and improving the business environment has received accolades from Chinese President Xi Jinping, who said the FTZ business model should now be copied at other suitable sites across China where conditions are right. Xi told a meeting of China’s top regulators that the experience gained in the Shanghai FTZ “is like seeds cultivated in a test field, and now we will plant them across a greater range of sites, in a hope that they will bear more fruit”.

Promising free trade, greater financial opening and fewer Government controls over business activities in a 29 sq km zone, the Shanghai FTZ has seen the establishment of approximately 12,000 firms since its launch in late September 2013.

Xinhua reports that foreign trade in the zone accumulated US$122.25 billion in its first year. Sites most likely to be China’s next FTZs are coastal areas including Tianjin’s Binhai New Area, Xiamen (Fujian province), and the Pearl River Delta (Guangdong province); their applications are likely to be approved before the start of 2015. Cities that have filed FTZ applications are: Qingdao (Shandong province), Zhengzhou (Henan province), Wuhan (Hubei province), and Zhoushan (Zhejiang province). www.webershandwick.cn (ATI).