China Will Push FTA "Friends Circle" Expansion To Expand The Cross Border Electricity Supplier Test Area.

China's government network June 12th reported that Premier Li Keqiang recently chaired a State Council executive meeting, decided to further promote customs clearance facilitation, continue to optimize the port business environment, and make greater efforts to open to the outside world, and promote the diversified development of import and export.

The meeting stressed the need to actively promote the signing of high standard free trade agreements and regional trade agreements with more countries. We will expand the comprehensive pilot area for cross-border e-commerce.

At present, China has signed 18 FTA with Australia, South Korea, Singapore and other countries, and is promoting 12 FTA negotiations.

12 FTA negotiations are being promoted.

The meeting pointed out that to expand the diversified international market with enterprises as the main body is conducive to promoting stable quality and stable operation of foreign trade. We should actively promote the signing of high standard free trade agreements and regional trade agreements with more countries. We will expand the comprehensive pilot area for cross-border e-commerce. Enterprises should be encouraged to improve the international marketing network and promote the export of products that meet the needs of the international market. Actively increase imports. We will promote balanced, stable and healthy development of imports and exports.

Bai Ming, deputy director of the International Market Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, pointed out that developing a diversified international market is an important part of the "trade power". At present, China's foreign trade has a high market share in Europe and the United States. We should pay more attention to improving the added value and technology content. On the other hand, we should vigorously expand the emerging market. Sino US trade conflicts continue, which makes it more urgent to develop diversified international markets.

Since the beginning of this year, China's main trading partners have continued to differentiate. ASEAN has surpassed the United States as China's second largest trading partner. Customs data show that in the first 5 months of this year, trade between China and Europe totaled 1 trillion and 900 billion yuan, an increase of 11.7%, accounting for 15.7% of China's total foreign trade; trade between China and ASEAN amounted to 1 trillion and 630 billion yuan, an increase of 9.4%, accounting for 13.5% of our total foreign trade.

Over the same period, China's total imports and exports to the countries along the belt and road grew by 3 trillion and 490 billion yuan, an increase of 9%, which is 4.9 percentage points higher than that of the whole country, accounting for 28.8% of the total value of our foreign trade.

Influenced by Sino US trade friction, China's trade with the United States has continued to decline, and the United States has dropped to the third largest trading partner of China. In the first 5 months, the total trade volume between China and the United States was 1 trillion and 420 billion yuan, a decrease of 9.6%, and the trade volume between China and the United States accounted for 11.7% of the total value of China's foreign trade. In 2017, this figure was 15.2%.

Bai Ming believes that China is in urgent need of expanding the "circle of friends" of FTA in the face of economic globalization and multilateral trading system. This is also an important starting point for developing diversified markets.

According to the twenty-first Century economic report, as of now, China has signed 18 FTA with Australia, South Korea and Singapore. 12 FTA negotiations are also being promoted, including bilateral negotiations with GCC, Norway, Sri Lanka, Israel, Moldova, Panama and Palestine, upgrading negotiations or second stage negotiations with Singapore and South Korea, as well as multilateral negotiations between China, Japan, Korea, and RCEP.

At the end of last year, Zhang Shaogang, director of the Department of international affairs of the Ministry of Commerce, told the twenty-first Century economic report that after 16 years of efforts, China had reached 17 free trade agreements with 25 countries and regions at the end of last year (at that time, the second phase of negotiations between China and Pakistan was not yet completed). From the perspective of trade volume, China's FTA trade accounted for 38% of foreign trade, even if it did not include Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, the proportion reached 25%. FTA

In terms of cross-border electricity providers, in 2015, the State Council agreed to set up the first comprehensive test area in Hangzhou. In 2016, second batches of test zones were set up in 12 cities such as Tianjin and Shanghai. In 2018, the State Council further extended the cross-border electricity supplier comprehensive test area to 22 cities such as Beijing and Nanjing.

Bai Ming said that after the regular session, the cross-border electricity supplier pilot area is expected to be extended to a wider area. In the past two years, the comprehensive test area has explored a series of experience that has great value of replicating and promoting. With the expansion of the scope of the experiment, the cross border electricity supplier comprehensive test area may also make some new explorations with more emphasis.

Reduce customs clearance time and reduce charges

The meeting also pointed out that, in accordance with the deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, relevant departments have actively promoted customs clearance facilitation and achieved remarkable results. As of May this year, the overall clearance time of import and export has been achieved earlier than half of 2017, and the cost of customs clearance has been significantly reduced.

Next, we must continue to simplify the integrated customs clearance process, implement the import declaration and complete declaration of the "two step declaration" customs clearance mode, and substantially reduce the clearance time. By the end of the year, the "single window" of international trade has reached 100% of the main business applications.

Bai Ming told the twenty-first Century economic report that optimizing the port business environment and facilitating customs clearance are the frequent words of the national common meeting in recent two years.

On September 18th and 26 last year, the State Council held two consecutive executive meetings to conduct special research on facilitating cross border trade facilitation and promoting clearance. In October 13th, the State Council issued the work plan to optimize port business environment and facilitate cross border trade facilitation (No. 37).

Bai Ming said that a series of measures have been put forward by the Customs recently to promote the combination of quality inspection with commodity inspection and expand the scope of mutual recognition of AEO, and promote the "two step declaration" customs clearance mode and "single window", which will further significantly reduce the clearance time.

According to the General Administration of customs, based on the compression of over 50% of import and export customs clearance last year, the total customs clearance time in March this year has been reduced to 42.08 hours, which is 0.42 hours shorter than that in December last year. The overall clearance time for exports is 4.43 hours, and the total time for export is shortened by 0.33 hours. Since November 1st last year, the national customs has reduced the regulatory documents for inspection of import and export from 86 to 46.

In terms of cost reduction, Zhang Guangzhi, director of the National Port Administration Office of the General Administration of customs, said that the current import and export link charges include two categories, namely, government pricing and market regulated prices, which account for more than 90% of the import and export charges.

Since March 20th, 23 shipping companies, including Maersk, Mediterranean and COSCO sea, have further lowered their charging standards. Since April 1st, the security charges for port facilities have been cut by 20% and the port charges have been reduced by 15%.

In the 2019 business environment report released last year by the world bank, China's business environment ranking rose from 78 last year to 46, and the cross-border trade sub item ranking in business environment rose from 65 last year to 65, up 32 from last year's ranking, ranking among the 50 ranked economies in the world.