"Over 2 million USD tax fees was saved for our customers in just about two weeks after the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement (RCEP) was put into practice on January 1st this year. Therefore, I’m very optimistic about the coming policies in Nansha District and will accelerate investment and introduce more technology here," Liu Bin, Regional President for Asia and Pacific of Arkema, shared at a conference in Nansha District of Guangzhou on January 17.
Nansha released 17 pilot covering such fields as trade & investment facilitation and liberalization, smooth flow of factors, financial services, competition policy and green development after four conferences on collecting opinions from government, experts and enterprises and more than 10 seminars, with the aim to seize opportunities brought by the RCEP and Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
(Photo/Liang Wenxiang Nanfang Daily)
RCEP and CPTPP have largely promoted the efficiency of clearance, which is one of the focuses of Nansha’s efforts in the past and future. According to Nansha Customs, up to now, the types of regulatory certificates needed for verification in import and export has been reduced from 86 in 2018 to 41, a decrease of 52.3%. In line with the rules of RCEP, international trading of enterprises from RCEP member states will enjoy more favorable clearance policies in Nansha, including releasing express goods, fresh and perishable goods within 6 hours after arrival.
(Photo provided to Newsgd.com)
Nansha will also shorten the negative list for foreign investment’s access to China’s service industry and ensure foreign enterprises a fair competition environment. This is clearly ruled out in the first article of the 16th pilot: no discrimination on nationality is allowed when implementing policies, a positive sign for foreign enterprises.
These policies also shed light on Nansha’s move to build an offshore data center and an offshore trade pilot zone to ensure the security and smooth flow of data, the facilitation of cross-border trade and investment & financing as well as the convenience of local and foreign currency exchange and cross-border circulation.
With the signing of the Nansha Initiative on Trade and Intellectual Property in January of 2020, Nansha has been highlighting the protection of intellectual property rights and plans to build workstations to offer assistance in the protection of intellectual property rights in key industries and build a more inclusive environment for innovation and doing business.
Nansha is China’s first free trade zone to implement policies in line with RCEP and CPTPP, a pioneering step to keep up with international trading rules and carry out institutional opening-up measures.
(Photo provided to Newsgd.com)
In the first 11 months of 2021, Nansha has seen the total import and export value of foreign trade reach 236.05 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 15.9 percent, accounting for nearly a quarter of that in Guangzhou during the same period.
Reporter: Rofel
Editor: Steven, Jasmine, Jerry
