Southern Metropolis Daily:

I have noticed that as the guideline on accelerating the building of a unified national market was issued recently, "unified market" has become a buzzword. What is the relationship between building a unified national market and developing a new development paradigm featuring dual circulations? Thank you.

Sheng Qiuping:

Ok, let me take your question first. It is a very important question, and I would like to share my views on it from our work on commerce.

In my view, the building of a unified national market is not only the basic support for smoothing the domestic circulation but also the inherent requirement for promoting domestic and international circulations. On the one hand, building a unified national market clears up barriers and smoothens the circulation and is thus conducive to forming unimpeded and efficient domestic circulation in which supply and demand mutually reinforce, production and sales are advanced in parallel. On the other hand, as the market is the world's scarcest resource, the building of a unified national market will help maintain and enhance its strong attraction to global companies and resources, better boost market connectivity, industrial integration, innovation promotion, rule alignment, and consequently promoting domestic and international circulations.

Commerce is an important part of the domestic circulation and an important hub linking domestic and international circulations. It plays an important role in the construction of a new development paradigm. In recent years, we, together with relevant departments, have achieved remarkable progress in promoting domestic and foreign trade integration, integrated development of online and offline businesses, the coordination of urban and rural areas and among regions by fully leveraging the advantages of commerce in connecting domestic and foreign trade, urban and rural areas, and coordinating production and sales, contributed to building a unified national market.

Steady progress in integrating domestic and foreign trade has been made. Since reform and opening up, and especially since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China has made significant progress in the integration of domestic and foreign trade. First, the market for domestic and foreign trade has been growing. China has become the world's second-largest consumer market and the world's biggest trader in goods. Second, the management system of domestic and foreign trade integration has taken shape, and China established a domestic economic management system in line with international economic and trade rules. Its laws and regulations of domestic and foreign trade have been continuously improved, barriers to access to domestic and foreign trade markets and cross-border flow of goods have been greatly reduced, and public services have continued to improve. Third, the connection between domestic and foreign trade markets has been active. Several large companies and numerous micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises engaged in both foreign and domestic trade have grown up.

Integrated development of online and offline businesses has been accelerated. In recent years, China has made notable progress in the e-commerce business with accelerated integrated development of online and offline businesses. According to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, the sales volume of online retail reached 13.1 trillion yuan last year. China has been the world's largest online retail market for nine consecutive years since 2013, and its number of online shoppers has seen explosive growth in the past decade. The number of online shoppers in China reached 812 million by June last year. The express industry has grown rapidly. More than 100 billion packages were handled last year, nearly 20 times that of 2012, ranking first in the world. 

The commercial distribution system has supported the coordinated development between urban and rural areas and regions. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China has actively promoted an upgrade of the agricultural product market and improved the distribution system of agricultural products. There are 44,000 agricultural product markets nationwide. Since 2014, China has developed e-commerce programs targeted at rural areas. 2400 county-level e-commerce public service centers and logistics distribution centers were built, and 148,000 village-level e-commerce service facilities were built, which have increased the income of 6.18 million poor rural residents and helped lift people out of poverty. Meanwhile, we have upgraded pedestrian streets in major cities, built 15-minute community service circles, developed brand chain convenience stores, and promoted the linkage of business, travel, and culture to make shopping and leisure activities more convenient and diversified. 

Here, I would also like to share a typical case of integrating domestic and foreign trade and fostering dual-circulation development. That is the experience of Yiwu. China has carried out a comprehensive pilot reform for foreign trade, a pilot reform for the distribution system of domestic trade, and a pilot program for free trade zone since 2012. In the past decade, Yiwu's exports have increased by 5.4 times, imports by 10 times, and e-commerce transactions by 6.1 times. From "buying and selling in China" to "buying from the world and selling to the world," Yiwu has made solid progress in building itself into the world's capital of small commodities. Next, we will focus on promoting consumption, improving distribution, and ensuring stability in foreign trade, and make our contribution to building a unified domestic market and establishing a new development paradigm. Thank you. 

Pu Chun:

I have something to add. A unified domestic market is a key marker of a mature market economy and basic support and an intrinsic requirement of establishing a new development paradigm. 

First, building a unified domestic market is an important foundation for stimulating market vitality and boosting internal momentum for economic development. Accelerating the establishment of rules in a unified market system will help stabilize market expectations, strengthen market confidence, form a strong domestic market, and provide a stable, open, transparent, safe, law-based, and predictable institutional environment to promote stable economic development. 

Second, building a unified domestic market is an important precondition for promoting smooth domestic circulation and fully leveraging the super large Chinese market. Building a unified market of factors and resources is conducive to equal and easy access to market resources for all types of market entities, promoting an orderly flow of all types of production factors on a wider scale and providing favorable conditions for unleashing the potential of the super large market. 

Third, building a unified domestic market is an important measure for unleashing the potential consumption and expanding consumer demand. Promoting high-level integration of markets for goods and services is conducive to boosting consumer confidence, expanding consumer demand, and providing basic support for implementing the strategy of expanding domestic demand and reinforcing China's economic resilience.

Fourth, building a unified domestic market is important for high-standard opening-up and forging new advantages in international cooperation and competition. Moving ahead with institutional opening-up of standards and rules is conducive to enhancing attractiveness to advanced international resources, promoting the connection of domestic and international markets to enable China to gain new advantages in international competition and cooperation. 

Next, the State Administration for Market Regulation will fully implement the tasks put forward in the Opinion in the following aspects:

First, we will diversify institutional supply for market regulation. We will study and explore mechanisms and policies that align with regulation requirements for a mature market economy to provide a stable, orderly, secure, and trustworthy market environment for all market entities.

Second, we will accelerate efforts to build a market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized business environment. We will continue with further measures to push forward the institutional reform for market entities to access and exit the market and get business permits. We will continue to introduce all kinds of facilitation measures to better play the role of business environment reform in stabilizing market expectations.

Third, we will further the implementation of policies to ensure fair competition. We will move faster to do away with all regulations and practices that impede the functioning of a unified market and fair competition. We will further regulate unfair competition and market intervention and take solid steps to improve the stability and predictability of regulation.

Fourth, we will focus on improving the quality and safety of products and further protecting consumers' rights and interests. Focusing on major areas related to the quality and safety of products, we will deepen regulations and management to ensure product quality and market order and work to improve the market environment for consumers and boost their consumption confidence. Thank you all.