Advances in development of inland free trade zone

A press conference was held on Monday by the high-tech functional zone within the Shaanxi Free Trade Zone to demonstrate its achievements in the construction of free trade, promotion of valuable experience and enhancement of its brand.

The press conference is held in the High-tech Zone on Monday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Yang Hua, deputy director of the administrative committee of the Xi'an Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone and director of its free trade office, described the overall operation of the hi-tech functional zone during the two years since the Shaanxi Free Trade Zone was established on April 1, 2017 with approval of the State Council.

Yang Hua said that in the two years since the Shaanxi Free Trade Zone was listed the high-tech functional zone has adhered to the principle of system innovation as the core, promoted reform pilot tasks as a whole, and presented six bright spots in construction and development. Through its reliance on the policy dividend of the FTZ, investment in high-tech has been significantly enhanced.

According to Yang, in 2018 there were 16,971 new market players, 152 foreign-funded enterprises and more than 140 new enterprises with registered capital of more than 100 million yuan in the high-tech functional zone. They ranked first in the central areas of the Shaanxi Free Trade Zone. Promoted by benign experimental policies the market vitality of the main body of the high-tech functional zone was fully released.

By deepening the reform of "opening up, management and service", the high-tech functional zone had been actively exploring new government management modes with good results. More than 100 pilot reform tasks have been completed, and the assessment tasks have been over-fulfilled.

The 230 administrative licensing and service items originally handled by the relevant departments of the High-tech Zone were transferred to the Administrative Examination and Approval Bureau for implementation, thus realizing "one seal for examination and approval", Yang said.

Office Building of the China (Shaanxi) Free Trade Pilot Area. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In terms of enhancing innovation, the high-tech functional zone adheres to system innovation as the core and has made a number of reform and innovation achievements. It ranks first in reported cases, characteristic innovation cases assessed by third-party organizations, provincial best practice cases, and replication and innovative promotion of reform achievements in the province.

To build a platform for exchange and deep cross-border cooperation eight offshore innovation centers, including those in Israel (Tel Aviv), Xi'an North America (Silicon Valley) and Xi'an Germany (Berlin), as well as seven science and technology service stations, have been built by the high-tech functional zone.

The zone has also been approved as a "national cultural export base" for the construction of Xi'an's foreign cultural trade base, the deputy director said.

Yang said that in addition, in order to promote financial innovation and establish a risk prevention and control system, and as one of the five demonstration zones of the first national pilot project of investment-credit linkage, the high-tech functional zone set up credit and financial service platforms, bringing together basic information about more than 2.5 million market operators in the province.

It also brings together nearly 20,000 in-depth credit information entries regarding finance, social security, taxation and land of 17,000 enterprises or so in the Xi'an high-tech zone. Tens of millions of reports have been issued. Thirty billion yuan ($4.47 billion) has been required for various types of financing, and about 20 billion yuan of financing has been introduced.

Yang Hua said that in 2019 the high-tech functional zone will continue to make deep breakthroughs in reform and development, and accelerate integration into global innovation by creating growth poles in West China and innovation hubs with global influence.