On April 1st this year, the China (Sichuan) Pilot Free Trade Zone was established for two years. The Provincial Free Trade Office recently revealed that as of present, over 95% of the 159 reform and trial tasks assigned by the central government has been implemented, and more than 400 practical cases have been formed, of which 49 were reported to the Office of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference of the State Council.

Institutional innovation represents the core task of the Pilot Free Trade Zone. Over the past two years, the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone has arrived at a series of influential institutional innovation cases, such as the “Unimpeded Access with the First Certificate” reform for administrative examination and approval, “Hour List for Enterprise Registration” and “IPR Quick Review Mechanism”.  The well-targeted 29 institutional innovations with positive feedbacks and controllable risks are promoted throughout the province.

The improvement of the business environment embodies directly the outcome of institutional innovation. In mid-March this year, Chengdu Ito Yakado E-Commerce Co., Ltd., a foreign-funded enterprise, was awarded the first “Value-added Telecom Business License of the People’s Republic of China” by Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone. "That certificate has cut corners in multi-departmental approval and coordination, and thus provided a detour for foreign businesses," the relevant person in charge of the Chengdu Free Trade Office introduced.

In these two years, Sichuan has devolved two batches of 142 provincial-level management authorities to all parts of the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone. The “43 Certificates as One” was launched in the district, reducing the business start-up time to 5 working days. The “Hour List for Enterprise Registration” was promoted, compressing the start-up time to 2 working days and as fast as 1 hour; the Shuangliu Airport has opened fully the “7 × 24 hour" reservation service for clearance, placing the customs clearance efficiency of Chengdu among the top ones of the 42 customs areas in the country.

Added with the reform dividend, the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone has become an important platform for opening up to the outside world. As of 2018, 53,000 enterprises have been newly established and 628 foreign-invested enterprises have been introduced, of which 85% falls within the scope of high-end service industry. According to the relevant person in charge of the Provincial Free Trade Office, the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone has shouldered nearly one-tenth of Sichuan's import and export volumes and accommodated nearly one-half of foreign-invested enterprises with less than 1/4000 of the total provincial area.

The relevant person in charge of the Provincial Free Trade Office introduced that the 2.0 version of the reform and opening-up draft is under way, and clarified the main path of the Zone to expand its opening-up and innovative development. At the same time, it is compiling the Action Guide for the Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone which directs the Zone to benchmark against advanced international rules from multi-perspectives, and to look up to the highest standard.

The Sichuan Pilot Free Trade Zone was established on April 1st, 2017. It mainly stretches across Chengdu and Luzhou with a total area of 119.99 square kilometers, and can be further divided into three areas inlcuding Chengdu Tianfu New Area, Chengdu Qingbaijiang Railway Port Area and the South Sichuan Port Area.