A total of 159 reform experiment missions were fully launched and 21 typical experiences were reported to the state. On March 31st, the press conference for the first anniversary of the listing of the China (Sichuan) Pilot Free Trade Zone was held in Chengdu, showing the public the great achievement the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone has made for the past year since its inception.

The conference was hosted by Mr. Li Xiaojun, Vice Minister of the Propaganda Department of the Provincial Party Committee. Mr. Liu Xin, Provincial Director of the Department of Commerce and the Deputy Director of the Provincial Free Trade Office, Mr. Liu Xiaoliu, Deputy Mayor of Chengdu City, and Mr. Liu Qiang, Mayor of Luzhou City, respectively introduced the construction of the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone. The press conference revealed that after a year of exploration and practice, the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone has received a groundbreaking high start, which not only stimulated the growth of open economy, but also promoted the innovative development of ideological concepts, development concepts, institutional mechanisms, government services, and legal environment. Over the past year, Sichuan has accumulatively added 34,000 new enterprises in the Pilot Free Trade Zone, with registered capital exceeding RMB 400 billion and more than 300 foreign-invested enterprises. Last year, the import and export volume of Chengdu and Luzhou cities, where the Pilot Zone was located, has increased by 49.1%.

In terms of policies support, the government has established the “three-level Linkage between Province, cities, and districts” management structure and the “list system + responsibility system + supervision system” model, and has compiled “6 lists”. The provincial government has successively formulated the management measures and implementation plans for the Pilot Free Trade Zone, established a mechanism of “encouraging reform and innovation, allowing trial and error, and tolerance failure”, and has implemented differentiated and characteristic reforms such as exploring the construction of inland free trade ports and promoting regional cooperation and opening up. The seven central government agencies in Sichuan and seven provincial departments have launched more than 500 valuable support policies with strong operability.

In terms of the implementation of tasks, the 159 reform test tasks given by the central government has been initiated in an all-round way, contributing to more than 200 practical cases, more than 50% of which are “streamlining administration, delegating powers and improving regulation” cases and 28 are new cases. After the evaluation of a third-party organization, 21 typical experiences were reported to the Office of the Joint Meeting of the State Council, which would be first promoted throughout the province. More than 20 institutional innovation experiences and best practice cases will be newly launched recently, including the “Single Window” for international trade, “One-order System” for multimodal concentrated transportation, “Corporate Bonds for Innovative and Entrepreneurial Companies” such as small and medium-sized technology enterprises, Less Container Load and Concentrated Transportation Model of China-Europe Train, etc.

In terms of transforming government functions, the first batch of 33 provincial-level management authorities was delegated to various districts, and 99 pilot reforms of “the Separation of Business Certificate and Business License” were promoted in an orderly manner. The administrative examination and approval bureau was established in the South Sichuan Port Area. Consequently, the examination and approval efficiency was increased by 80%. The Chengdu area canceled 298 various types of certificates, only reserving 15 ones. Among the 11 Pilot Free Trade Zones across the country, it was the first one to be approved to establish the People's Court in the Pilot Free Trade Zone.

In terms of trade facilitation, the filing and industrial and commercial registration of the foreign-invested enterprises are able to be managed in one window. More than 99% of foreign-invested enterprises are under record management, and the filing materials have been reduced by more than 90%. Besides, it has also provided the “Internet + Enterprise Registration” service of Customs for the first time, and implemented the “One Inspection” mode in the joint inspection area of Customs and Inspection and Quarantine Department. Thanks to the reform of “going through the Customs formalities after the import and export goods in batches”, the amount of customs declaration has reduced by 94%. The average customs clearance time of import and export in Chengdu customs area are 7 hours and 0.6 hours, which has been compressed by 53.5% and 49.6% respectively compared with that of 2016. The customs clearance efficiency for import and export ranked the third and eighth respectively in the 42 customs areas of the country. The “15 facilitation measures” for the entry and exit of foreigners and business personnel in the Pilot Free Trade Zone were introduced. The time for the second endorsement of Hong Kong and Macau travel groups was reduced from 5 working days to two minutes.

In terms of collaborative opening up, Yibin Port Economic Development Zone has participated in the special action of collaborative reform of the South Sichuan Port Area, and has jointly introduced such emerging industries as smart terminals. What’s more, it has established the cooperation mechanism of the Sichuan-Canton Pilot Free Trade Zone, cooperated with 17 cities including Guangdong to carry out administrative services in different places, conducted joint experiments of less container load and concentrated transportation model with Urumqi, Lanzhou and Xining and has jointly built a dry port with Kunming and Liupanshui.

This year, the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone will “comprehensively promote the development and openness of leading project”, hold a provincial-level leading project construction site meeting, and introduce guiding opinions for promoting leading project construction. Furthermore, it will also accelerate the construction of “Five Major Institutional Innovation Systems” consisting of modern government governance, two-way investment management, trade supervision service, financial open innovation, and regional collaborative opening up. It will strengthening basic research in accordance with the highest international standards, and explore the construction of an inland free trade port featuring aviation with concentrated transportation as its competitive edge. Moreover, it will also implement the collaborative opening up strategy of inland and the regions along the coast, the Yangtze river and the border, promote the coordinated reform of the “3 District+ Numerous Park” in the province, and build a number of collaborative open demonstration zones outside the province to further deepen the strategic cooperation mechanism of the Brothers Pilot Free Trade Zone. In addition, it will establish “Five Supporting Platforms” such as statistical monitoring, new think tank, all-media center, legal service organization, and information platform for supervision and evaluation.