The comprehensive bonded zone is a special customs supervision area with a high level of openness, convenient customs clearance, and preferential policies, known as the "pearl on the crown" of the open economy. Recently, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the General Administration of Customs' "Several Measures to Promote Capacity Expansion and Quality Improvement of Comprehensive Bonded Zones", proposing 24 reform measures.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the construction of comprehensive bonded zones in China. After the State Council issued the "Several Opinions on Promoting the High level Opening and High quality Development of Comprehensive Bonded Zones" in 2019, the national level has once again made systematic strategic arrangements for the development of comprehensive bonded zones. What are the considerations? Which institutional innovations in the measures are worth paying attention to? What benefits will it bring to the enterprise? The General Administration of Customs held a press conference on the 27th to interpret this.
Comparing the two documents of several opinions in 2019 and several measures recently issued, the reporter found that the former focuses on "high-level opening up and high-quality development", and for the first time proposes to build the comprehensive bonded zone into five centers of "processing and manufacturing, research and development design, logistics distribution, testing and maintenance, and sales services", providing a "pillar and beam" for the development of the comprehensive bonded zone; The latter focuses on "capacity expansion and quality improvement", proposing a series of practical measures from four aspects: enhancing the development level of new formats and models, ensuring the resilience and safety of industrial and supply chains, promoting the integration of domestic and foreign trade, and improving the efficiency of smart supervision and collaborative governance.
As an important platform connecting domestic and international markets and resources, there are currently 168 comprehensive protection zones in China, achieving full coverage in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. By 2025, the total import and export value of China's comprehensive bonded zones will reach 7.2 trillion yuan, accounting for nearly one sixth of the country's total import and export value with less than one twenty thousandth of its land area, effectively promoting the development of China's open economy.
However, with the accelerated reshaping of the global trade pattern and the continuous promotion of high-quality domestic development, the comprehensive bonded zone is facing problems such as weakened policy advantages, insufficient role in promoting domestic and foreign trade integration, and insufficient international competitiveness. It is urgent to achieve capacity expansion and quality improvement through policy innovation.
Pan Cheng, Director of the Free Trade Zone and Special Zone Development Department of the General Administration of Customs, stated that these reform measures are based on the bonded functions and policy integration advantages of the comprehensive bonded zone, actively aligning with international high standard economic and trade rules, and combining the functional positioning of various regions, the actual needs of enterprises, and the prominent issues that need to be addressed through research and proposal.
Specifically, in terms of "enhancing the development level of new business formats and models", it mainly includes the development of "bonded+" new business formats such as bonded maintenance, bonded testing, remanufacturing, cross-border e-commerce, and bonded training, as well as seven measures to strengthen the linkage between biopharmaceutical research and development. This fully reflects the policy orientation of stimulating growth potential with new business formats and is highly innovative.
Among them, the specific measure of "exploring the implementation of negative list management for bonded maintenance products in comprehensive bonded zones" has received widespread attention.
According to Pan Cheng, currently, the maintenance products in the comprehensive bonded zone are managed through a positive list, which means that all 276 types of goods covered by the four batches of maintenance product catalogs can carry out bonded maintenance business in the zone. The transition from the "positive list" to the "negative list" will not only significantly expand the scope of bonded maintenance business, but also promote the upgrading of comprehensive bonded zones from traditional processing and manufacturing to high value-added industries.
The biopharmaceutical industry is closely related to people's health and well-being, and is a strategic emerging industry that China focuses on developing. It is also a focal area of global technological competition.
Zhang Zheng, Deputy Director of the Development Department of Free Trade Zones and Special Regions of the General Administration of Customs, stated that the preliminary research received strong demands from biopharmaceutical enterprises outside the comprehensive bonded zone: due to the high initial investment costs of existing laboratories and the integration of research and development and manufacturing, enterprises are unable to move their R&D links into the zone alone, and urgently hope to further reform and innovate to share the bonded R&D dividends in the zone.
Since enterprises cannot enter, let policies go out. In response, the document proposes a breakthrough specific measure of "piloting the granting of comprehensive bonded zone customs registration codes to qualified biopharmaceutical research and development enterprises outside the zone".
Currently, accelerating the restructuring of global industrial and supply chains has become an important task for China's economic development, ensuring the resilience and security of industrial and supply chains. In terms of "ensuring the resilience and security of the industrial chain and supply chain", the document proposes four measures, including serving national strategic needs, implementing remote supervision of major technology and equipment industrial chains, optimizing key commodity management, and implementing differentiated qualification assessments.
In order to further enhance the level of integrated development of domestic and foreign trade, the document specifies seven measures to support the coordinated development of comprehensive bonded zones and ports, support the transfer of exported products to domestic sales, support the convenient export of specific goods, simplify equipment export procedures, expand information exchange and mutual recognition, and optimize cross-border fund settlement. Efforts will be made to promote the transformation of the development model of comprehensive bonded zones from the traditional "two ends outside" to serving the domestic and international dual circulation.
The measures to improve the efficiency of smart supervision and collaborative governance involve profound changes in regulatory models and governance mechanisms, which are the core support for the institutional opening of the comprehensive protection zone. They mainly include the construction of a smart supervision system, the improvement of full life cycle management, the increase of joint incentives for trustworthiness, the improvement of supporting management service levels, and the construction of a comprehensive service management platform.
It is understood that currently, cities under the jurisdiction of various provinces in China are actively applying for comprehensive protection zones. Industry insiders revealed that in terms of layout, there are already a relatively large number of comprehensive guarantee zones across the country, as well as homogeneous competition.
To promote the differentiated and distinctive development of comprehensive bonded zones, "Pan Cheng stated that the measures proposed in the document to" improve full lifecycle management "aim to guide localities in coordinating the construction and development of comprehensive bonded zones from aspects such as review and establishment, construction acceptance, planning adjustment, and development evaluation. This includes scientifically controlling increment, reasonably optimizing stock, focusing on improving quality, and striving to establish and run one well.
The outline of the 15th Five Year Plan proposes to promote the transformation and upgrading of comprehensive bonded zones. Pan Cheng stated that with the implementation of 24 reform measures, the comprehensive bonded zone will usher in a new round of development opportunities, undertake more important tasks and missions, and inject strong impetus into China's further expansion of high-level opening-up during the 15th Five Year Plan period. Welcome foreign trade enterprises to combine their own business characteristics, make full use of the policy functions of comprehensive bonded zones, and continuously enhance the competitiveness of enterprises and products, "he said. (Looking into the New Era)