Economic Daily:

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China's open economic system has been continuously improved, providing strong support and guarantees for China's opening up to the outside world and the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee made arrangements for developing new systems for an open economy with even higher standards. How will the Ministry of Commerce implement these arrangements and promote institutional opening up? Thank you.

Wang Wentao:

Opening up is an important feature of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. It's a broad question, so let me answer it.

In the process of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, especially since the 18th CPC National Congress, we have opened to the outside world in a wider and deeper manner. Some high-level open systems have basically taken shape. For example, in terms of law, the foreign-related economic and trade legal system has been gradually improved. In terms of management, the management system, policy system, and security guarantee system have also become more complete. A market system that is relatively unified, open, competitive, and orderly has gradually taking shape. Opening up is a kind of reform in itself. In the next step, we need to promote reform with determination, courage and responsibility and deepen reform by opening up and accelerate the transition from opening up based on flows of goods and factors of production to opening up based on rules and related institutions. We will further push forward the continuous improvement of the new systems for an open economy with higher standards in the following three aspects.

First, we will scale up efforts to improve free trade zones and ports. Since their establishment, pilot free trade zones have served as good models of reform and opening up. At the national level, we have rolled out 278 institutional innovations. Meanwhile, the Hainan Free Trade Port is also under steady construction. We have reached a consensus and pinpointed our targets. In the next step, we will promote our opening up in accordance with a higher standard of international economic and trade rules. We may apply high-level economic and trade rules in some areas with favorable conditions and conduct stress tests. Testing helps boost our opening up efforts. After detailed analysis, some economic and trade rules can be directly implemented when the conditions become favorable. Some must be ratified and then implemented, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). We take high-standard economic and trade rules as references to promote further opening up. We will also further cut the negative list on foreign investment in the pilot free trade zones. We have been exploring and working hard in these aspects.

Second, we will improve the balance in opening up our different regions. We will further promote major regional strategies and regional coordinated development strategies and strengthened inter-regional connections, including coordinating coastal and inland areas and connecting the eastern and western regions. In particular, there is great potential for opening up in the central and western regions as China further deepens opening up. China has a vast territory, and there is a lot of room for development in the central and western regions. This year, in accordance with General Secretary Xi Jinping's requirements for enabling exhibits to become traded goods and exhibitors to spot more investment opportunities at the China International Import Expo (CIIE), we launched a series of investment promotion events for the CIIE, so that CIIE exhibitors can learn more about the market and investment environment of China's central and western regions. The first promotional event was held in Sichuan province and next, we will launch a series of activities to promote the linkage between the east, west, central areas and northeast China. Considering the transfer of some industries and the expansion of the market, we will also accelerate the innovation and development of border trade, speed up the construction of border economic cooperation zones and cross-border economic cooperation zones, and step up the opening of border areas to the outside world.

Third, we will improve the security guarantee system for the open economy. Development is the foundation of security, and security is the bottom line at all times. We must keep security in mind and accelerate development on the basis of security. The more open we are the more attention we must pay to security. We will improve the level of supervision, ensure the security of the industrial chain and the supply chain, properly resolve economic and trade frictions, and forestall and defuse major risks.