The meeting on Chongqing’s opening up and the Belt and Road took place in Southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality on October 22, 2019. Tuesday witnessed the issuance of the Action Plan for Chongqing to Pioneer in Opening-Up in Inland China and Serve the Belt and Road.
Chongqing Western Logistics Park (Photo by Wang Zihan)
The Action Plan sets the development goals as Chongqing will have formed an all-dimensional, multi-tiered, and wide-ranged pattern of opening-up, built an international logistics hub with ports, and further improved its open economic system by 2022. Foreign trade volume by then will total more than RMB 600 billion with an actually utilized foreign capital of USD 10 billion annually.
In order to achieve that goal, the Action Plan elaborates on five aspects, channels for opening-up, opening-up platforms, open ports, open market entities, an internationalized and enabling business environment based on the rule of law.
Chongqing is a strategic node of China’s Western Development and at the intersection of the Belt and Road and the Yangtze River Economic Belt. China Railway Express (Chongqing) to Europe train makes regular trips, and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor connects Chongqing with southern China and beyond. Chongqing has a “1+2+7+8” opening-up platform system, including Liangjiang New Area, China (Chongqing) Pilot Free Trade Zone, and China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity.
In order to be a pioneer of opening-up in inland China, the city will further improve its port system, port services, and way of supervision. It will also better-structure its foreign trade, improve two-way investment, and give a full play of expositions and meetings like the Smart China Expo. Meanwhile, the only municipality in western China will continue to improve its market environment, government services, the rule of law, and living conditions.
From January to August 2019, Chongqing achieved RMB 360.88 billion of foreign trade inflows with an increase of 13.9% year on year, and its foreign direct investment was USD 1.64 billion, increased by 0.5%.