殷德生：构筑全球贸易枢纽 打造亚太投资门户   2021-05-27

 

During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, Shanghai has basically built an international trade center that matches China's economic and trade status and plays a pivotal role in the global trade and investment network. Shanghai has achieved the "Grand Slam" in terms of scale: Shanghai's port trade volume ranks first among cities in the world, and its container throughput has ranked first in the world for 11 consecutive years; Its total retail sales of consumer goods, e-commerce transaction volume and service trade volume all rank first among Chinese cities; Shanghai has become the city with the largest number of regional headquarters of multinational companies in mainland China and the preferred city for the layout of the industrial chain of multinational companies.
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the external environment facing the construction of the Shanghai International Trade Center has become more complex and changeable. "Major changes unseen in a century" and new features and changes in international political and economic geography have brought both unprecedented challenges and opportunities. On the one hand, the increase in global trade barriers has brought new changes, especially the increasing restrictions and uncertainties in the import of high-tech products. Therefore, the global supply chain has been adjusted in depth, thus forming a new layout; On the other hand, the restructuring of international economic and trade rules has led to new changes, especially, the digital economy and trade rules that have become increasingly fierce. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the development goal of the Shanghai International Trade Center aims at achieving the all-round leap at the energy level. The primary task is to basically build a global trade hub and Asia-Pacific investment portal, which conforms to the three basic logics and trends of international trade development, i.e. investment-driven trade, digital-driven trade, and rule-driven trade.
Agglomeration-driven Trade
Building A Global Trade Hub
The core of the high-quality development of the Shanghai International Trade Center is achieving the leap at the energy level, and this depends on the agglomeration and efficient allocation of resource elements. Shanghai should accelerate the formation of a global trade hub that has stable trade scale, strong distribution functions and obvious competitive advantages, and can connect domestic and international markets, as so to become a gravitational field of global high-end elements with service economy and digital economy being the main characteristics, and a bridgehead integrating into the global industrial chain.
Based on "enhancing the ability to allocate global resources to serve the construction of a new development pattern" and the two basic paths proposed in the Improving the Energy Level Planning of the Shanghai International Trade Center During "the 14th Five-Year Plan" Period (hereinafter referred to as the Plan): On the one hand, we will consolidate the domestic regional agglomeration of resource elements and create a trade hub that links the Yangtze River Delta, serves the whole country, and radiates the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, we will build the Hongqiao International Open Hub with high-quality, and turn it into a new platform for the international trade center featuring openness and sharing and a new engine that leads the regional coordinated development. On the other hand, Shanghai will follow the new trends brought about by the in-depth adjustment of the global supply chain and the regionalization of the world industrial chain, establish good trade relations with Japan, South Korea, ASEAN and countries along the "Belt and Road", increase the agglomeration of the global industrial chain in China and especially in the Yangtze River Delta.
Investment-driven Trade
Building an Asia-Pacific Investment Portal
Taking the new round of opening up of the service industry as the breakthrough, we will make Shanghai the first choice for foreign investment in the new era and build a network for promoting global investment. We will accelerate the opening up of key areas such as telecommunications, scientific research and technical services, education, and health, and especially the financial services. We will promote the first implementation of opening up measures in the financial sector such as banking, securities, insurance, futures, trust investment, asset management, and rating.
We will implement the "Headquarters Empowering Plan" to create a high-quality foreign capital gathering place. We will encourage multinational companies to set up global-oriented asset management centers, sales centers, procurement centers, supply chain management centers and other functional institutions and open innovation platforms in Shanghai to build a service chain with a full life cycle for foreign investment.
We will build Shanghai into a bridgehead for the "Belt and Road" foreign investment and cooperation, gather a group of local multinational companies with global influence, create a new type of international trade development highland through investment and innovation, and enhance the level of knowledge-intensive service trade. For example, we will explore and establish a "Belt and Road" investment and financing center to guide more social funds to participate. We take investment-driven trade as a key driving force for the continuous conversion of new and old kinetic energy of trade, so as to promote Shanghai's full integration into the global value chain and supply chain system.
Digital-driven Trade
Building an International Hub for Digital Trade
The digital economy is a new economic form with digital knowledge and information as the core elements, and supported by digital technology and modern information networks. Its main manifestations are the growth of the digital industry and the digital sector, and the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy. The competition among the world's major countries and economies in the digital economy and trade has become increasingly fierce.
The Plan puts forward the strategic task of building an international hub for digital trade. We will take the digital infrastructure, the agglomeration of market entities and the construction of public services as breakthrough to accelerate the construction of an international hub for digital trade with orderly flow of elements, complete functions, and agglomeration of headquarters. We will promote the construction of dedicated channels for international Internet data and data hub platforms in the Hongqiao Business District and other specific functional areas. We will build a global digital trade highland in the Yangtze River Delta, a digital trade cross-border service cluster and a big data industry cluster.
Nowadays, in-depth issues such as the development, algorithms, pricing, flow and protection of data resources have become a headache for global governance. The Plan focuses on exploring and advancing the construction of digital trade rules and systems. It takes the lead in formulating international digital trade rules. It can better represent China in participating in international digital economy competition and cooperation, especially the game of international digital economic and trade rules. It focuses on key links such as the confirmation, pricing, transaction, storage, and transfer of digital assets, and improves the comprehensive intellectual property services and cross-border payment and settlement services in the digital economy. It strengthens data sharing functions and comprehensive supporting service functions, and provides data compliance consulting services for companies engaged in digital trade when "going global".
Rule-driven Trade
Take the Lead in Carrying out High-level Institutional Opening up
China has entered a stage of institutional opening up, and this is a distinctive feature of reform and opening up in the new era. The shift from the opening up based on the commodity and factor flow to institutional opening up in rules and standards not only means the deeper, more comprehensive, and more systematic opening up, but it is also an inevitable choice for building a higher-level open economic system. Moreover, it is an important measure for China to actively participate in the reform of the international economic governance system.
In the Plan, it is proposed to benchmark against the highest international standards and best levels, take the lead in the construction of institutional opening up and the enhancement of global resource allocation capabilities, form an experience that can be replicated and promoted, create a market-oriented, rule-of-law, and internationalized super-class business environment, and build an innovation highland for the trade and investment system. We must improve the system of laws and regulations that adapt to the high-quality development of trade. We need to promote the legislation and amendment of the regulations on the construction of the International Trade Center and the local regulations in key areas such as digital trade, e-commerce, and market systems so as to strengthen legal support and protection for new business formats and new areas.
At present, global bilateral or regional free trade agreements are accelerating the reconstruction of new international economic and trade rules, and new high-standard international economic and trade rules and new topics are constantly being proposed, which shows new features and trends such as the opening policy is extending from outside the border to inside the border, the institutional integration degree of the opening policy has become higher, and the opening policy is changing from standardization to customization. The Shanghai International Trade Center should focus on promoting the expansion of the opening policy from a single policy to systematic reform, and from standardization to customization, so as to become the pioneer of high-level institutional opening up. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, we will focus on promoting the high-level institutional opening up of the Pudong New Area, the Pilot Free Trade Zone and the Lingang New Area. Pudong New Area has taken the lead in advancing the high-level institutional opening up in rules, regulations, management and standards, as well as in increasing the opening up of modern service industries and advanced manufacturing industries. The Pilot Free Trade Zone and the Lingang New Area are serving as the experimental fields for building a higher-level open economic system.
 (Author Yin Desheng, Director and Chief Expert of Institute for Shanghai International Trade Center, East China Normal University-Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce)

 

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