Hainan Free Trade Port to serve as new growth engine

Master blueprint sets out detailed measures to ensure island's success in the future

China has put together a package of preferential policies to help build Hainan into a free trade port, which will serve as a new growth engine for the nation and the global economy, officials and experts said on Monday.

A master plan for the Hainan Free Trade Port was released by Chinese authorities on June 1, aiming to build the southern island into a globally influential high-level free trade port that embodies Chinese characteristics by the middle of this century.

Building the Hainan Free Trade Port is of vital importance for pursuing an open economy, deepening market-based reform and improving the business environment. It is also a strategic choice for advancing high-quality development and concrete action to support economic globalization and building a community of a shared future for humanity, according to the mega-plan.

The plan said that during its development, the port will draw on advanced experience to form an internationally competitive opening-up policy system. It will forge itself into a frontier zone that can integrate China into the global economic system while conforming to Hainan's orientation and sticking to bottomline thinking and management.

In April 2018, China announced plans to build a pilot free trade zone covering the whole of Hainan Island－which is 35,400 square kilometers or 32 times the size of Hong Kong－and explore the establishment of a free trade port with Chinese characteristics.

At a news conference in Beijing on Monday, officials explaining the master plan said that the country will build a high-quality free port in Hainan province in steps and phases.

An official from the National Development and Reform Commission said at the news conference that the first phase of the government's master plan is to be completed in 2025, with a focus on liberalization and aiding trade and investment.

"We will make a big push to boost the free and efficient flow of various production factors and strive to make breakthroughs in around three years, which will lay a solid foundation for the islandwide special customs clearance operation," he said.

The second phase will focus on further optimizing opening-up policies and relevant institutional arrangements. By 2035, high-level process supervision will be constructed to achieve free trade and investment facilities, free cross-border capital flows, free and convenient transport and access for people, and safe and orderly flow of data, according to the mega-plan for the Hainan Free Trade Port.

By then, Hainan will become a new hub of China's open economy, with its business environment more optimized, the laws and regulations system improved, the risk prevention and control system more stringent, and the modern social governance pattern established, said the official.