China's FTZ claims Asean trade boost
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Goal to create maritime silk road
A PILOT Free Trade Zone – launched in China’s coastal province of Fujian in April this year – was to take advantage of the nation’s strong links with overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, officials here said. The eventual goal, they said, was to help establish the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
Launched at the same time as a pilot free trade zone (FTZ) in Guangdong and Tianjin, the Fujian FTZ comprised three centres covering 118 sqkm in Pingtan, Xiamen and the province’s capital city of Fuzhou.
The FTZ was created to facilitate trade and investment by making the zone an internationalised, market oriented and law-based business environment, officials said.
Business procedures in the FTZ would be eased through a “single window” system in order to have economic activities operate freely via the free trade zone.
Fujian’s foreign trade grew 4.8 per cent to $117 billion last year, while foreign investment brought $161 billion to the province at the end of last year, according to authorities.
As Fujian province is located next to Taiwan, all three centres of the FTZ have opportunities to reach across the Straits of Taiwan.
Since the launch of the Silk Road to link with Asean countries two years ago, authorities in Fujian will take advantage of its FTZ to share economic activities with countries along the route.
Asean nations like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand – where overseas Chinese are active in economic matters – have strong ties with Fujian via the FTZ, according to Fuzhou’s Mayor Yang Yimin.
Dai Bin, director-general of the China (Fujian) Pilot Free Trade Zone in Xiamen areas, said some 200 companies from Asean countries were now doing business via the FTZ in the city. Malaysia has the largest number of Asean firms in the Xiamen zone due to its strong ties with the Chinese comunities there, he said.
Key agricultural products from Thailand - notably rice - were traded via Xiamen: more than one million tonnes annually, he said. And he noted that as the FTZ becomes fully operational, the volume of trade would definitely increase.
Countries in Southeast Asia are displaying many of the key successes for the free trade zone, Dai said, and gave the example of the single window system in the FTZ being applied from Singapore.
The FTZ in three areas of Fujian had welcomed foreign trade and investments – but prioritised the development of high technology, international trade services, financial services, a cruise-based economy as well as other emerging and high-end services, he said.
However, an official in Fuzhou said Beijing had drawn up a number of areas on a “negative list” in which foreigners were not allowed to invest.
Under this “negative list”, FTZ foreign investment would be prohibited in sectors such as certain non-ferrous metal mining, air traffic control systems’ management, postal enterprises and production of radio and television programmes.
Foreign investments are restricted to joint ventures with domestic companies in sectors such as oil and natural gas exploration and development, general-purpose airplane design, manufacture and maintenance as well as rare earths smelting, according to officials.
