With promises of free trade, greater financial opening and fewer government restrictions in business activities, China is trying to build a network of free trade zones.

Premier Li said China will advance talks on free trade zones and investment pacts with countries and organizations including the Gulf Cooperation Council, Israel and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

China will also continue negotiations on investment agreements with the United States and the European Union, Li said.

These talks are part of China's development initiatives known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

Proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road initiatives aim to connect the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, refreshing the Middle East's historic role at the crossroads of international trade and cultural exchange.

Developing free trade zones with other countries is also a major step by China to promote reform and opening up under the current situation of a slowing domestic economy, dubbed by the Chinese leadership as the "new normal."

After establishing its first pilot free trade zone in 2013 in Shanghai, it has approved similar zones in Guangdong in the south, Tianjin in the north and Fujian in the east.

It is hoped that those Chinese pilot zones will interface with international free trade zones, with China prioritizing such arrangements along the Belt and Road.

"We will extend good practice developed in these zones to the rest of the country so that such zones become leading reform and opening up areas, each with its own distinctive features," Li said.

While free trade between China and other countries has long bubbled away at a relatively low level, experiments in those zones are aimed at accumulating experience for China to increase free trade, said Li Guanghui, vice president of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

The expansion of free trade zones will also help China better protect its interests in bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations, he said.