BEIJING (Xinhua/Internews): China has revealed a guideline, outlining 20 measures to expand financial opening up in the country’s pilot free trade zones and a free trade port.
These measures, focusing on six areas, aim to better align China’s financial sector with international standards and advance institutional opening up of the sector, said the guideline jointly issued by the People’s Bank of China, the Ministry of Commerce and three other government bodies.
According to this document, foreign financial institutions will be granted the same treatment as their Chinese counterparts when providing new financial services not available in the country at that stage.Valid applications filed by financial institutions and cross-border financial service providers concerning financial services will be processed within 120 days, as per the document.
The country will also support the purchase of certain types of cross-border financial services, facilitate the inbound and outbound fund transfers related to foreign investment, improve arrangements for cross-border flow of financial data, and strengthen regulation of this sector, the guideline said.
These measures will be implemented in pilot free trade zones in Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin, Fujian and Beijing, as well as the Hainan Free Trade Port and other important cooperative platforms.At the Central Economic Work Conference held last month, China’s policymakers stressed the need to expand high-standard opening up and keep foreign trade and foreign investment stable.
China will steadily enhance institutional opening up and improve the quality and efficiency of pilot free trade zones, according to the conference.
Meanwhile, China aims to achieve substantial progress in all-around rural revitalization and promote the modernization of agriculture and rural areas to a new stage by 2027, according to a plan issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council.
The foundation of national food security will be further strengthened, and the overall agricultural production capacity will steadily increase, ensuring that the Chinese population’s food supply remains firmly in their own hands, states the plan on all-around rural revitalization for the 2024-2027 period.
The plan underscores raising the level of guaranteeing grain and key agricultural product supplies, proposing the goal of ensuring that grain planting areas remain stable at about 1.75 billion mu (about 117 million hectares), with cereal areas around 1.45 billion mu.
It also urges efforts to promote a steady increase in grain production capacity to reach about 1.4 trillion jin (700 billion tonnes).
The developed regions in the east and suburban villages in cities of central and western regions where conditions permit will take the lead in achieving agricultural and rural modernization by 2027, according to the plan.
By 2035, decisive progress will be made in the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas, with agricultural modernization essentially realized and rural areas equipped with the basic conditions for modern living, the plan notes.
