Ministry Of Commerce: Comprehensively Clean Up And Remove The Restrictions On Foreign Investment, China Is Negotiating 13 New Free Trade Agreements With 28 Countries

How can foreign trade grow steadily in 2019?

From December 22 to 23, the national business work conference was held in Beijing. In his work report, Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan pointed out that in 2019, the Ministry of Commerce will promote all-round opening up, promote the formation of a strong domestic market, carefully run the second China International Import Expo, do a good job in economic and trade work with the United States, speed up the construction of pilot free trade zones and free trade ports, and speed up the construction of a strong economic and trade power.

The meeting revealed that it will study the specific plan for adding a new area of Shanghai pilot Free Trade Zone, study and put forward the policy and system for Hainan to build a free trade port step by step and in stages, issue a negative list of foreign investment in 2019, and promote the promulgation of the foreign investment law as soon as possible.

In addition, China has reached 17 free trade agreements with 25 countries and regions, covering 38% of its foreign trade volume. Currently, China is negotiating with 28 countries on 13 new free trade agreements. RCEP is expected to complete the negotiations next year, and the negotiations on the China Japan ROK free trade area are also expected to accelerate significantly on this basis.

Foreign trade will reach a record high

Zhong Shan said that this year's foreign trade will reach a record high, the status of the world's largest trading country will be further consolidated, and the process of becoming a trade power will be accelerated.

In the first 11 months of this year, China's total import and export volume was 27.88 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.1% over the same period of the previous year, including 14.92 trillion yuan of exports, an increase of 8.2%, and 12.96 trillion yuan of imports, an increase of 14.6%.

Song Mao, deputy director of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out that the annual record of US $2 trillion was probably exceeded in the same period of last year.

At present, the total number of people with indirect employment accounted for more than 12.8% of the total number of foreign trade workers, accounting for about 1.8% of the total number of foreign trade workers in the previous month, accounting for about 1.8% of the total number of foreign trade employees.

However, it is worth noting that the growth of foreign trade slowed down in November. In US dollar terms, China's foreign trade increased by 4.3% in November, including export growth of 5.4% and import growth of 3%.

He said that the focus of this year's economic and trade friction between China and the United States in the 21st century is to actively deal with economic and trade friction between China and the United States. To this end, the Ministry of Commerce responded quickly, took the initiative, conducted in-depth research and evaluated the impact. According to the demands of local governments and enterprises, this paper puts forward some suggestions on stabilizing foreign trade such as increasing export tax rebate rate.

Looking forward to 2019, he believes that due to the slow process of global economic recovery, the devaluation of emerging economies' currencies, and the continuous escalation of Sino US economic and trade frictions, the situation of foreign trade development in 2019 will be more complex and severe, with greater downward pressure, and it will be more difficult to stabilize growth.

Next year, the Ministry of Commerce will support 375 existing foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases, improve the quality and efficiency of development, and cultivate a number of new foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases. At the same time, we should actively expand imports. We should do our best to run the second Import Expo; implement the policies and measures to expand imports to promote the balanced development of foreign trade; further promote the reduction of the total level of import tariffs; increase efforts to support the import of advanced technology, important equipment and key parts; and further improve the policy support measures for parallel import of automobiles.

It is reported that since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Commerce has added eight pilot areas for parallel import of automobiles; it has promoted four times of independent tariff reduction, reducing the tariff on pharmaceutical products, consumer goods, automobiles and industrial products, and the total tariff level has dropped from 9.8% to 7.5%.

Pay close attention to the study of free trade zone system policy

The director general of Hong Kong free trade zone and the Ministry of Commerce of the people's Republic of China will also focus on the construction of the free trade zone in the 21st century.

This year, China has formulated and promulgated plans for further deepening the reform and opening-up of Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian pilot free trade zones, as well as several measures to support the deepening of reform and innovation in the pilot free trade zones, forming a new batch of 30 pilot reform experiences and spreading them to the whole country. "Next year, we will promote the reform and opening up of new initiatives in the pilot Free Trade Zone, and study the specific plan for adding a new area of Shanghai pilot free trade zone. We should pay close attention to the study and put forward the policy and system for Hainan to build a free trade port step by step and in stages, and accelerate the process of exploring the construction of a free trade port with Chinese characteristics. " Tang Wenhong said.

He said that next year, the Ministry of Commerce will continue to expand market access, promote a comprehensive clean-up in areas other than the negative list, and remove the access restrictions on foreign investment, so as to achieve the same market access standards for domestic and foreign capital. "In 2019, we will release the 2019 version of the negative list of foreign investment. It is a good thing to shorten the length of the negative list. After the list comes out, there is still a lot of work to be done, such as the policy documents supporting the list, and even laws and regulations need to be further cleaned up, which is the next thing to do."

In response to the central economic work conference's proposal to allow more fields to implement sole proprietorship, Tang Wenhong told the 21st century economic report, "there is no difference between the advantages and disadvantages of sole proprietorship and joint venture, which mainly depends on investors: some investors are not familiar with the market and need to cooperate with others, so they are more willing to adopt the joint venture mode; and those who are familiar with the market or are full of confidence when they just come If investors want to adopt the mode of sole proprietorship, it depends on whether the policy allows it. At this level, it will be a matter of reducing the negative list. "

Up to now, the national version of the negative list of foreign investment has been reduced to 48, and the list of pilot free trade zones has been reduced to 45. "Next year, we will further reduce the negative list, especially further reduce restrictions such as share ratio restrictions, which will be conducive to foreign investment in more areas of sole proprietorship." Tang Wenhong said.

Tang Wenhong said that while promoting the negative list, the Ministry of commerce is studying the construction of a framework for China to attract foreign investment in the new era. The key points include six aspects: the investment liberalization policy with the negative list as the core, the investment facilitation policy with deregulation as the core, the investment protection policy with the legal system construction as the core, and the investment promotion policy with the optimization of service as the core System innovation as the core of investment platform construction, coordinated development as the core of investment layout policy.

Trade volume of FTA accounts for 38% of foreign trade

The Tariff Commission of the State Council issued a notice on December 24, saying that since January 1, 2019, China's negotiated tax rates with New Zealand, Peru, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Iceland, South Korea, Australia, Georgia and countries in the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement will be further reduced.

In 2018, China's FTA construction has achieved fruitful results. Zhang Shaogang, director general of the International Department of the Ministry of Commerce, introduced that this year, China signed the China Singapore FTA upgrade protocol, concluded the China Mauritius FTA negotiations, and launched the China Panama, China Palestine FTA and China Peru FTA upgrade negotiations. The second leaders' meeting on the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement has been held and substantive progress has been made. The second phase of China ROK FTA negotiations, China Norway and China Israel FTA negotiations are also being further promoted.

Zhang Shaogang told the 21st century economic report that the construction of China's free trade zone began in 2002. After 16 years of efforts, up to now, 17 free trade agreements have been reached with 25 countries and regions, with free trade partners covering Asia, Oceania, South America, Europe and Africa. The construction of China's free trade zone has gradually formed a pattern of free trade zone based on the surrounding areas, radiating the "belt and road" and facing the world.

"In terms of trade volume, China's FTA trade accounts for 38% of our foreign trade. Even if Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are not included, this proportion has reached 25%. Of course, this is not a high level in the world, so we will actively implement the strategy of free trade zone and establish free trade zone with more major trading partners. "

He said that China is currently negotiating with 28 countries on 13 new FTA's. In the next step, China will continue to accelerate the negotiations on the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement and the China Japan ROK free trade agreement, improve the utilization rate of enterprises to the FTA, and continue to play a positive role in promoting the steady growth of foreign trade.

RCEP is expected to make significant progress in the next year, which means that a multilateral free trade agreement covering half of the world's population, one third of GDP, one fourth of trade volume and one fifth of foreign investment is on the way.

It is worth noting that RCEP's plan to end the negotiations in 2018 has not been reached, and the closing time has been postponed several times in recent years.

Zhang Shaogang said that RCEP includes 16 countries. Due to the large gap between the development level and social system of each country, there are the most developed countries and the least developed developing countries, so it is inevitable that there will be difficulties in the negotiation process. In addition, as a new trade arrangement, RCEP needs to properly handle the relationship between RCEP and the old trade agreements. "For example, we already have FTA with South Korea, ASEAN and other countries and regions. How to deal with the relationship between the new and old agreements also needs time."

He said that since this year, the RCEP negotiations have made significant progress. "According to our assessment, 80% of the content has been completed, and it is very likely that the negotiation will be concluded next year."

In addition, the FTA negotiations between China, Japan and South Korea are also facing an obvious acceleration. Zhang Shaogang said that the level of openness of the three-party negotiations will be higher. However, since all three parties are in RCEP, it is likely that the RCEP will be negotiated first and then the FTA of China, Japan and South Korea will be reached on this basis.

(editor Wu Hongying, for comments and suggestions, please contact: xiakt @ 21jingji.com; wuhy @ 21jingji.com)