A few days ago, China (Tianjin) Pilot Free Trade Zone ushered in the 8th anniversary of its listing. Through bold ventures, bold trials, and independent reforms, Tianjin Free Trade Zone has become a "test field" for system and mechanism innovation, a "growth pole" for industrial agglomeration, and expanded opening up. "New Heights". The Central Business Area is one of the three major areas in the Tianjin Free Trade Zone. Over the past eight years, the Central Business Area has always adhered to the important instructions and requirements of General Secretary Xi Jinping on the construction and development of the Free Trade Pilot Zone as a guide to increase opening up and institutional innovation. A superimposed development model of "Free Trade Zone + Economic Development Zone" has been formed.
Up to now, the number of registered market entities in the central business area has exceeded 27,000, and more than 3,000 financial and quasi-financial institutions have been gathered in total, with a fund management scale exceeding 3.5 trillion yuan. Among them, there are 158 legal person licenses and their branch financial institutions, which is a rare area in China with full financial licenses.
Since its establishment 8 years ago, the Central Business District has handled more than US$4 billion of overseas investment and attracted more than US$10 billion of foreign investment, making it a top-ranked cross-border investment and financing gathering area in the country.
Featured finance leads the country's first achievements to continue to emerge
As the financial area of Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone, the core bearing place of financial reform and innovation demonstration base, and the pilot city (district) for the integration of industry and finance, the central business area continues to innovate characteristic finance, focusing on building the commercial factoring industry. Known as the "Commercial Factoring Capital of China", the central business district has gradually become the first choice for high-quality enterprises to set up factoring companies in the past eight years, and has become the source of innovation, model output, institution gathering place and Develop to high ground.
In December 2022, the Central Business District and the Tianjin Free Trade Zone Innovation Development Bureau jointly formulated the country's first systematic support plan for promoting the upgrading and development of the commercial factoring industry in the country's first pilot free trade zone - "China (Tianjin) Pilot Free Trade Zone Several measures to promote the high-quality development of the commercial factoring industry". The plan includes a total of 18 working measures in six aspects: optimizing enterprise services, supporting innovative development, improving industrial ecology, launching policy fights, empowering the real economy, and strengthening risk prevention. Relevant measures focus on the planning of commercial factoring business innovation and system innovation, which not only upgrade and expand approval, supervision, financing channels, communication carriers, legal protection, and taxation environment, but also encourage and support the exploration of new business directions.
Since its listing, the Central Business District has formed a number of major innovation cases in the industry in terms of financial innovation. Since 2021 alone, the district has achieved the country’s first cross-border RMB international factoring business, breaking through international factoring barriers and opening up new scenarios for factoring business; all digital RMB pilot application scenarios have been implemented, and 180,000 personal wallets have been opened, successfully Pilot the country's first supply chain financial scenario of "digital renminbi + loan issuance + factoring business", creating the first successful practice of using the central bank's digital currency to complete loan issuance through commercial financial institutions. In addition, the central business area has also realized more than 20 pioneering cases such as the first N+N full-form factoring asset ABS storage business of a central enterprise, the country's first credit-based TABS business, and the country's first rural revitalization ABN product.
Institutional innovation presses the "fast forward button" and linkage innovation broadens the "circle of friends"
Innovation is the core task of the free trade zone. In the past eight years, the central business area has been the first to try, dare to act, and continuously improve the breadth, depth and strength of institutional innovation.
Since the overall deployment and implementation of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development strategy, the central business district has fully implemented Tianjin’s strategic positioning as an advanced manufacturing research and development base, an international shipping core area, a reform and opening up pioneer area, and a financial innovation operation demonstration area under the coordinated development strategy. Actively play its own role, promote central enterprises to carry out innovative business along the direction of state-owned enterprise reform, and strive to create a trend of high-quality and comprehensive integration of central and local governments. Create a central enterprise group capital operation headquarters that has transformed from "management of assets" to "management of capital", build a supply-side reform implementation agency for "reduction of two funds" and "deleveraging", build a supply chain financial platform, and set up various investment enterprises of central enterprises, Domestic and international trade settlement center, expand technology innovation center, technology research and development center, professional research institute, etc. At present, the central business area has formed a development trend of central and local integration in all industrial chains and industries. Up to now, nearly 400 investment institutions of various central enterprises have landed, and the cumulative investment scale has exceeded 300 billion yuan.
Focusing on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development strategy, the central business district continues to promote the institutionalization of cross-provincial handling of government services, and do a solid job in undertaking Beijing's non-capital functions. The area pioneered the joint service model of "inter-provincial handling" of government service matters, and promoted four batches of 179 items to achieve "colleagues with the same standard" in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, and 162 high-frequency items to be handled across provinces in three places; promote Beijing-Tianjin-Guangzhou The 268 government service items in the three places are the first batch of "inter-provincial handling" items. Through the "full-process online office" and "inter-provincial joint office" and other methods, the convenience of enterprises and the public has been greatly improved.
In terms of joint innovation, the "circle of friends" in the central business district continues to expand, further expands the depth and breadth of policy and industrial innovation, gives full play to the role of the "experimental field" for national system innovation, and strives to contribute more results of reform pilots.
In 2022, the Central Business Area will promote the signing of a cooperation framework agreement between the Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone and the People’s Government of Qionghai City, Hainan Province. Free trade innovation linkage, industrial development docking, complementary resource advantages, and mutual learning of development experience will further tap the areas and potential of national strategic cooperation between Hainan Free Trade Port and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development. In addition, in 2022, the Central Business Area will successfully promote the approval of the Tianjin Emissions Exchange and the Tianjin (Binhai) Offshore Innovation and Entrepreneurship base for Overseas Talents to build a joint innovation demonstration base in the Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone; promote the approval of the Binhai-Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park, which is the first in the city. A batch of service industry expansion and opening up demonstration parks, giving priority to copying the policies of the pilot free trade zone.
Burst out a strong "magnetic force" to expand opening up and achieve new breakthroughs
As the frontier of opening to the outside world, in the past eight years, the level of investment facilitation in the central business district has been continuously improved, and the region has burst into a strong "magnetism".
The Central Business Area actively promotes the implementation of international economic and trade rules, and establishes an RCEP cross-departmental cooperation promotion mechanism. On January 1, 2022, under the guidance of Tianjin Customs and the Municipal Bureau of Commerce, the Central Business Area promotes enterprises in the area to successfully obtain Tianjin's first The RCEP certificate of origin helps companies save tariff costs.
In order to support enterprises to participate in international cooperation on a larger scale, in a wider field, and at a deeper level, Tianjin Free Trade Zone has set up a cross-border investment and financing comprehensive service center in the Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone in the central business area to build a cross-border investment and financing that is in line with international economic and trade rules. The platform serves Tianjin Pilot Free Trade Zone enterprises to make good use of "two markets" and "two resources". Focusing on key links such as policies, functions, industries, services, and carriers, promote the integrated innovation of government services, market services, and capital services, and provide enterprises with high-level cross-border investment and financing services.
Up to now, the central business area has completed more than 50 cross-border investment cases such as CITIC Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Gopher Capital, as well as hundreds of investment and merger cases of real industries such as CanSino, Asymchem, and Lirong New Energy. It has attracted more than 30 well-known foreign equity investment companies such as Hillhouse Capital and Primavera Capital, and the first Hong Kong-funded private equity securities investment fund management company has landed, becoming the area with the most cross-border investment and financing in Tianjin.
Since Tianjin was approved as a comprehensive pilot program for expanding the opening up of the service industry in 2021, the central business district has firmly grasped the advantages of the pilot free trade zone and strived to build a new pattern of development. In 2022, Tianjin will release the first batch of 10 innovative practice cases for the comprehensive pilot program of expanding and opening up the service industry, and 3 cases in the central business district will be selected. Among them, the new service model of "one enterprise, one certificate" for Internet hospitals realizes "accelerated running" for enterprises to apply for certificates, and the time for self-built medical institutions to apply for first- and second-class for-profit Internet hospital projects has been shortened by more than half, which has significantly improved the Internet hospital project approval service experience; "Double Pledge registration" carbon quota pledge financing new model has successively created the first business of the People's Bank of China Credit Information System and the Exchange System "Double Pledge Registration" business, Tianjin's first carbon quota pledge loan, Tianjin's first carbon financial financing business and other pioneering businesses, entity enterprises The surplus "carbon assets" under the name have been effectively revitalized, the financing channels of enterprises have been further expanded, the financial costs of enterprises have been effectively reduced, and the practical problems of financing and guarantee difficulties for energy-saving and emission-reducing enterprises have been effectively solved.