Officials hail role of Shanghai in opening-up

SHANGHAI: Zheng Haiao, deputy director of the Policy Research Bureau at the Management Committee of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, described his job as something like a “woodpecker”.

By working out measures for reform and innovation, Zheng said he and his colleagues manage to “peck off” the institutional barriers that might affect international market players in the pilot FTZ, in order to make their business development more “simplified, efficient and free”.

Speaking at a dialogue in Shanghai on Wednesday on the city’s achievements in practising Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, he discussed the development of the FTZ since it was founded in 2013.

He spoke of the work to reduce the number of items on the zone’s “negative list”.

Over the past eight years, the number of the items on the negative list was reduced from more than 190 to only 30 in order to keep widening market access for foreign businesses, and more than 12,000 foreign companies had set up operations in the FTZ, he added.

Zheng said that China will continue to open wider through consistent reforms, and Shanghai will definitely become a magnet for international investors.

Shanghai has been the frontier and barometer of China’s reform and opening-up since the country’s opening-up policy was launched in 1978.

Addressing Wednesday’s meeting, Li Qiang, Shanghai’s Party secretary, said it is through deepening reform and opening-up that Shanghai has become what it is today and created many miracles.

Going forward, Li said the city will further develop itself with bolder moves, keep deepening reforms, think outside the box and take innovative steps for new achievements in promoting all-around opening-up.

Foreign participants at the meeting also commended the CPC’s open and inclusive nature.

Ndong Ella Baudelaire, Gabonese envoy to China, said that, China has made huge achievements through reform and opening-up and also contributes to world peace, development and progress.

“I think it is an inspiration for countries like us,” he said. — China Daily/ANN