On June 28th, the reporter learned from the Chengdu Management Committee of the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone that a report on the construction progress of the Chengdu Free Trade Zone was recently submitted to the Standing Committee of the 17th National People's Congress of Chengdu for deliberation. The report shows that over the past year since the unveiling of the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone, 155 reform and testing tasks have been launched across the board in Chengdu, and 166 exemplary reform and innovation cases have been achieved through exploration. The dividend of reform has been released continuously. Officials in Chengdu have been stepping up efforts to forge a leading area boasting high-quality opening-up and development with better structure, superior quality and stronger power.

In order to deepen reform and attract enterprise investment, we have promoted the reform of “streamlining administration, delegating powers, and improving services”, and attached great importance to implementing the 97 pilot reforms of Separation of License and Operating Permit to ensure “once for all” solution for 85% of the approval items, and to realize online processing for more than 90% of basic public services. In the past year, 24,843 new enterprises have been registered in the area, representing an increase of 54.95% compared with that before the unveiling, which is 22 percentage points higher than that of Chengdu; the newly injected capital is RMB 341.889 billion, an increase of 47.35%, accounting for 26.13% of the city's total, nearly 20% higher than the increase rate of the city.

By efforts to expand powers and delegate rights, we have taken the initiative to decentralize 23 municipal-level management authorities to Chengdu, and strive to directly devolve 32 provincial-level authorities to the area. In terms of specific measures, for example, Chengdu has implemented a 144-hour transit visa-free policy for some foreigners, and adopted a three-year bonded warehousing policy for parallel imports of automobiles.

Two-way investment enjoys more convenience and freedom. We have implemented the pre-establishment national treatment plus negative list system across the board, introduced 12 new talent policies and 15 facilitation measures for the entry and exit of overseas talents. The number of newly established foreign-invested enterprises has reached 292, registering an increase of 44.44% compared with that before the unveiling of the free trade zone, 29 percentage points higher than that of the city. In addition, the Chengdu Area of the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone has become a new springboard for enterprises to “go global”, contributing to a total of 166 projects under construction and preparation in countries and regions along the “Belt and Road”, with an investment of more than USD 10 billion.

In terms of foreign trade promotion, we have further facilitated foreign trade channels. Shuangliu International Airport was approved as a national-level Airport Economic Demonstration Zone with a total of 317 routes, including 9 newly opened international routes. The number of international (regional) routes has amounted to 106. The international trains has formed “three parallel lines” in China Railway Express (Chengdu) and the southward lines have been “advancing together”, achieving connectivity with 15 overseas cities and 14 domestic cities in Asia and Europe. In 2017, China Railway Express (Chengdu) has operated 1012 trains, ranking the first in the country, driving an import and export value of RMB 19.71 billion, helping to export Sichuan's specialty products to Europe.

In terms of foreign trade facilitation, we have covered nearly 90,000 items of customs declarations for enterprises by speeding up the promotion and application of the “single window” for international trade. By implementing the "one-stop" service at railway ports, the average customs clearance time for import and export at cargo railway ports has been reduced by 48% and 44% respectively compared to that of 2016. The average customs clearance time for import and export at cargo air ports has been reduced by 53.3% and 65.5% respectively compared to that of 2016. With the improvement and transformation of foreign trade, the total import and export volume of Chengdu in 2017 has reached RMB 394.18 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 45.4%, ranking the first among the sub-provincial cities.

In terms of regional cooperation and co-construction & sharing, we have emulated and carried out 118 successful pilot cases proved by other pilot free trade zones. Among them, 9 cases including “establishing the “Belt and Road” legal alliance” and “establishing a dual reporting system for intellectual property and criminal cases” have been launched in the whole province. We have promoted the joint experiment and co-construction & sharing with 20 cities and municipals, implemented more than 600 investment and construction aid projects in the five economic zones of the province, and launched more than 400 cooperation projects with the Chengdu Plain Economic Zone.