Guangdong will promote the expansion of high-level opening-up policies, and in the future, pilot projects for high-level opening-up of cross-border trade and investment will be promoted throughout the province, optimizing business processes such as enterprise current account fund receipt and payment, and new international trade settlement.
How to expand high-level opening-up to the outside world by combining foreign trade, foreign investment, outsourcing, foreign economy, and foreign intelligence? Guangdong, a major province in foreign trade, has made clear the tasks of “five external linkage” in the coming period.
On May 10th, Guangdong Province held a press conference on the “Opinions on Implementing the” Five External Linkages “to Promote High Level Opening up to the Outside World.”. At the meeting, Wu Yansheng, Vice President of the Guangdong Branch of the People’s Bank of China, stated in response to a question from First Financial that in the future, the Guangdong Branch of the People’s Bank of China and the Guangdong Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange will increase the supply of facilitation policies for cross-border trade and investment, and strive for more pilot policies to be implemented in Guangdong. And promote streamlining administration and delegating power, adjust the registration of the “List of Trading Foreign Exchange Income and Expenditure Enterprises” and other businesses from the approval of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange to direct processing by banks, further optimizing the business environment. At the same time, we will also leverage the advantages of the Hengqin Guangdong Macao Deep Cooperation Zone’s multifunctional free trade account and explore high-level trade and investment liberalization and facilitation.
As of the end of March, a total of 79 multinational corporation groups and 925 domestic and foreign member enterprises in the jurisdiction where the People’s Bank of China Guangdong Branch is located participated in the pilot of centralized operation of domestic and foreign currency cross-border funds, with a centralized external debt and overseas loan amount exceeding 260 billion US dollars. Ten enterprises in the Nansha Free Trade Zone have obtained QFLP pilot qualifications and raised overseas funds of 3.35 billion US dollars. In addition, in promoting the facilitation of cross-border RMB settlement for high-quality enterprises, eligible high-quality enterprises can directly handle cross-border RMB settlement for trade with payment instructions, benefiting a total of 1773 enterprises with a business settlement amount of over 240 billion yuan.
When discussing how to improve the facilitation level of cross-border trade and financing in Guangdong, Wu Yansheng stated that promoting policy pilot projects such as the integration of domestic and foreign currency fund pools for multinational corporations, cross-border investment in private equity, and facilitation of cross-border financing will support more foreign investment in Guangdong.
Wu Yansheng also talked about streamlining administration and delegating power, optimizing the business environment, and stated that it will facilitate the domestic reinvestment business of foreign-invested enterprises, allowing them to reinvest in China without registration. Fully implement the policy of facilitating payment of foreign exchange income from capital accounts, allowing eligible enterprises to use capital account income for domestic payments without the need to submit authenticity proof materials to the bank in advance. Foreign exchange registration for capital projects such as foreign debt and overseas listings is directly handled by banks. As of the end of March, banks in the jurisdiction have processed a total of 137 foreign debt registrations with a registered amount of 1.96 billion US dollars.
Guangdong also plans to promote the expansion of high-level opening-up policies, and in the future, promote the pilot of high-level opening-up for cross-border trade and investment to the whole province, optimize the business processes of enterprise current account fund receipt and payment, new international trade settlement, etc. As of the end of March, the cumulative handling of the above pilot businesses has exceeded 200 billion US dollars. Promote the implementation of multifunctional free trade accounts in the Hengqin Guangdong Macao Deep Cooperation Zone, and further meet the cross-border fund settlement needs of cooperation zone enterprises and individuals from Hong Kong and Macao through more open cross-border fund flow policies, improving the efficiency of fund settlement and allocation.
Data shows that in the first quarter, the cross-border e-commerce revenue and expenditure in the jurisdiction increased by 55.9% year-on-year, and the new offshore international trade revenue and expenditure increased by 13.1% year-on-year. The local government will also cultivate new drivers of foreign economic growth through technological empowerment. Supporting eligible banks to conduct digital capital project business through online electronic document review, facilitating enterprises to handle business without leaving their homes. At the same time, we will guide the Guangdong Provincial Bank to establish a self-discipline mechanism for the development of foreign exchange and cross-border RMB businesses, and introduce guidelines for the development of cross-border e-commerce, market procurement, and new international trade businesses, unify operational standards, and improve business processing efficiency.
Recently, Guangdong issued the “Opinions on Implementing the” Five External Linkages “to Promote High Level Opening up to the Outside World”, which consists of seven major parts and 24 articles. At this press conference, Zhang Jinsong, Director of the Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province, interpreted the next “Five External Linkages” work tasks in the local area.
In promoting stable scale and optimized structure in foreign trade, more emphasis will be placed on mutually beneficial cooperation between trade and industry, consolidating international market share, filling import gaps, and seizing the high ground of trade development. Specific measures include focusing on building a number of trillion and trillion level export industry clusters such as electronic information, modern light industry and textile, smart home appliances, and new energy storage. Vigorously develop cross-border e-commerce, build 20 “industrial clusters+cross-border e-commerce” parks, cultivate a group of leading cross-border e-commerce enterprises with a scale of billions or even tens of billions, and build 500 large-scale overseas warehouses.
In terms of promoting the foreign economy to become better and stronger, we will give more prominence to making good use of both domestic and international markets and resources to build a stable and safe industrial chain supply chain. Specific measures include strengthening cooperation with Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and other countries and regions to jointly build the “the Belt and Road”, and orderly guiding the rational layout of local advantageous industries such as electronic information, smart home appliances, and digital industries overseas; Cultivate and strengthen a group of local multinational companies; High quality construction of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones, especially exploring new models of complementary cooperation in the “two countries, two parks” industrial chain.
In the first quarter of this year, Guangdong achieved a regional GDP of 3.15 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.4%. As a barometer of China’s economic trends and a barometer of Guangdong’s foreign trade prosperity, the 135th Canton Fair statistics show that as of May 5th, more than 245000 overseas buyers from 215 countries and regions participated, an increase of 24.6% compared to the previous session; The offline foreign trade export transaction volume was 24.7 billion US dollars, an increase of 10.7% compared to the previous session.