By setting up a "digital trade demonstration zone", deepening the reform of "decentralization, regulation and service", and making targeted adjustments to the labor law, the new port area can, on the basis of benchmarking international high-level economic and trade rules, combine its own institutional advantages and domestic and foreign cutting-edge concept practice, and further promote the high-level opening up.
The huge impact of the COVID-19 on the global supply chain, as well as the profound evolution of the international situation, may fundamentally change the previous model of globalization, strengthen cooperation through regional globalization, promote economic integration or become a new model in the future. Therefore, as the bridgehead and experimental field for the implementation of high-level opening up nationwide, how can the new port area of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone further benchmark such regional international high-level economic and trade rules as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP) and the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), explore and build a "new system of a higher level open economy", expand and promote rules Institutional openness, such as regulation, management and standards, plays a crucial role in achieving high-level openness.
At present, the new port area has initially built an institutional open system framework with the core of "five freedoms and one convenience", and further guaranteed the new area's greater independent management authority through documents and regulations such as Several Opinions on Supporting the Independent Development, Reform and Innovation of the New Port Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and Regulations on the New Port Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone It has made a strong step on the path of institutional opening by giving more stable expectations to market subjects and providing strong legal protection for deepening reform and innovation in new areas. Then, what is the room for further innovation in the system innovation of the new port area against regional international economic and trade rules such as RCEP, CPTPP and USMCA? Where is the breakthrough? What can I do next? These issues deserve further consideration, further exploration and experiment for building an international high-level free trade zone, and accumulate experience that can be promoted and replicated.
Space for further innovation
Since its establishment, the new port area has been comprehensively upgraded in terms of investment freedom, trade and transport freedom, capital freedom, personnel freedom of employment, dispute settlement, etc. In terms of freedom of investment, Huihua Wealth Management Co., Ltd., the first joint venture wealth management company in China, has settled in the new area near Hong Kong, actively exploring to relax the proportion of foreign shares in telecommunications, science and technology, education, health and other fields; In terms of freedom of trade and transportation, the only Yangshan Special Comprehensive Bonded Zone in China has been put into operation, implementing a new customs supervision mechanism of "six special", adopting special declaration mode, special trade control mode, special management mode in the zone, special statistical system, special information management mode, and special collaborative management mode; In terms of capital freedom, the People's Bank of China, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the Securities Regulatory Commission, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, and the Shanghai Municipal Government jointly issued the "30 Rules of Finance", which gave the financial pilot authority to the new district of Lingang. At the same time, the construction of the "Dishui Lake Financial Bay" was launched, attracting many influential Chinese and foreign institutions such as Credit Suisse Founder Securities to settle in; In terms of freedom of employment, the new mechanism for foreign high-level talents to directly apply for permanent residence and the residence permit for foreign talents for up to five years have been introduced successively; In terms of dispute settlement, the new port area is the only area in China where overseas arbitration institutions can set up business institutions.
At the same time, we also need to see that compared with the old economic and trade rules, the international high-level economic and trade rules represented by CPTPP and USMCA are also undergoing complex and profound changes. First of all, international high-level economic and trade rules emphasize fairness. In investment and other fields, both CPTPP and USMCA adopt the negative list model. Secondly, the international high-level economic and trade rules set stricter standards. Taking labor as an example, CPTPP and USMCA require member states to ensure that they fulfill the obligations of the core standards of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work through domestic laws, and link international trade with labor standards, so as to strengthen the enforceability of labor rights. Finally, high-level international economic and trade rules cover a wider range. Many rules and measures have shifted from "on the border" to "within the border" such as competition neutrality. In short, the international high-level economic and trade rules represented by CPTPP and USMCA have put forward higher requirements in investment, trade and transportation, capital, labor, dispute settlement, digital trade, state-owned enterprises and designated monopolies, regulatory consistency, etc.
In contrast to the Regulations on the New Port Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone issued in 2022, which represents the latest progress of the new port area, and the existing international high-level economic and trade rules, although the new port area has made great progress in terms of free investment, free trade and transportation, free capital, free employment of personnel, and dispute settlement, it has made great progress in digital trade, regulatory consistency, state-owned enterprises and designated monopolies There is still room for further innovation and development in labor security and other aspects. In reality, except for the right to make suggestions on state-owned enterprises and designated monopolies, the new district still has something to do in terms of digital trade, regulatory consistency and talent protection.
Breakthrough of innovation
At present, the new area has formed a general plan and made specific efforts in the above three aspects. In terms of digital trade, at the beginning of 2022, the Fourteenth Five Year Plan for Digital Development of the New Portside Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone was released, which proposed that "by 2025, the new port side area will form a relatively mature digital development institutional arrangement, initially build the world leading international data port, and initially build the 'International Digital City' demonstration pilot area". In terms of regulatory consistency, at the beginning of 2021, the Key Points for Deepening the Reform of "Regulation and Service" and Optimizing the Business Environment of the Administrative Committee of the New Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone in Port Area in 2021 was released, aiming to create a leading area for the reform of "Regulation and Service", promote the revolutionary reengineering of business processes, promote the comprehensive empowerment of the integrated platform, promote the continuous upgrading of the business experience, and explore the normalization of the "Tesla Model". In terms of talent security, at the beginning of 2022, the new district launched the country's first regional talent enterprise annuity plan. Its biggest breakthrough is to change the main sponsor of the enterprise annuity from an enterprise to a district. By giving financial incentives to individual accounts of talents, optimizing the design of individual payment ladder, improving the ownership of rights and interests and fund management mechanism, the new district promoted the realization of "migrant workers" in port enterprises to become "partners" in port businesses.
Next, compared with high-level international economic and trade rules, the new port area can further strengthen institutional innovation in digital trade, regulatory consistency and labor security.
In the field of digital trade, stress testing can be carried out by building a "digital trade demonstration zone" (hereinafter referred to as the "demonstration zone") and a "digital trade hub port" to lay the foundation for building a world leading international data port. Chapter 14 of the CPTPP constructs high-level international rules for e-commerce and digital trade, including 18 clauses. At the same time, the relevant obligations and exceptions in Chapter 9 (Investment), Chapter 10 (Cross border Service Trade) and Chapter 11 (Financial Services), especially Annex II List of Inconformity Measures for Investment and Cross border Services and Annex III List of Inconformity Measures for Financial Services, also apply to the important obligations in the e-commerce and digital trade chapters or some of them. The relevant provisions are committed to enhancing the market's confidence in e-commerce and digital trade by regulating the domestic electronic transaction framework, electronic signature and electronic authentication, online consumer protection, personal information protection, and unsolicited commercial electronic information; At the same time, it also reduces unnecessary barriers by regulating customs tariffs, non discriminatory treatment of digital products and services, paperless trade, access and use principles of e-commerce networks, and cross-border transmission of information through e-commerce. For these terms, the new port area can set up a demonstration area to conduct a greater degree of stress testing in terms of regulation, infrastructure and culture. At the regulatory level, the new zone can promote the non discriminatory treatment of digital products and services by introducing special policies on cross-border data flows, such as tariffs, with reference to the special economic zones; At the infrastructure level, the new zone can strengthen the construction of digital infrastructure in the demonstration zone, promote paperless trade and other ways to promote the flow of digital elements; At the cultural level, the new area can develop and introduce domestic and foreign leading digital trade enterprises in the demonstration area, so as to promote the creation of cultural atmosphere.
In terms of regulatory consistency, we can deepen "deregulation, regulation and service" in the framework of the reform leading area of "deregulation, regulation and service" in combination with best practices. Chapter 25 of the CPTPP focuses on its requirements for regulatory consistency. The main appeal is to implement core good regulatory practices to help achieve the goals of the contracting parties. As an important measure to improve the modernization of the government governance system, the reform of "decentralization, regulation and service" has greatly improved the level of administrative facilitation and enhanced the fairness of competition. Benchmarking the CPTPP, the new area can deepen the "pay off service" based on the existing best practices. Tesla, which only took 17 months from signing the contract to putting into production, and the ENN small gas turbine project, which achieved "five days and four certificates" from land acquisition to commencement, are the best practices of the new port area under the reform of "release management service". How to normalize the best practices can become the focus of further efforts to explore the regulatory consistency of new areas in the future. At present, the new zone has launched the integrated information management service platform version 2.0, which makes it more "free" on the basis of effective supervision. In the future service platform upgrading, the new zone can expand the "whole process online office" service field based on the integrated information management service platform, promote the reform of "comprehensive window", create more "one-stop" service brands, expand the functions of enterprise exclusive web pages, etc., and deepen the reform of "deregulation services" from the level of improving the "one network office".
In terms of labor security, we can try to use Vietnam's Labor Law for reference to carry out targeted adjustment and reform of labor security in the new area near Hong Kong. Chapter 19 of the CPTPP regulates the basic and general rights of workers in the State party. Its characteristics are: since the original contracting countries are members of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the CPTPP emphasizes the commitment to labor rights and expects to build a direct bridge between the labor laws of the contracting countries and the core labor conventions of ILO through common labor clauses. Therefore, targeted adjustment and reform of the Labor Law in accordance with the international high-level economic and trade rules is the next direction for the new area to try. In the process of adjusting the Labor Law, Vietnam's Labor Law Amendment can be used as an important reference for the new area near the port. In 2019, the CPTPP officially took effect in Vietnam, which is an important measure to integrate it into the international integration policy. Among them, it is worth noting that Vietnam's reform of the trade union system has played an important role in promoting Vietnam to keep pace with high-level economic and trade rules. The CPTPP stipulates eight conventions, of which Vietnam has ratified six before its accession. In November 2019, in order to fulfill the commitment made when joining the CPTPP, the Vietnamese Congress passed the amendment to the Labor Law, adding provisions such as "allowing the establishment of workers' own trade union organizations independent of the Vietnam Federation of Trade Unions and its subordinate trade union organizations" and "the government does not interfere with the enterprise's salary system". The adoption of the amendment is the first step for Vietnam to reform the labor rights system under the pressure of the CPTPP. The new area can learn from the revision of Vietnam's Labor Law and carry out targeted reform for enterprises in the area.
It is believed that by setting up a "digital trade demonstration zone", deepening the reform of "decentralization, regulation and service", and making targeted adjustments to the labor law, the new port area can, on the basis of benchmarking international high-level economic and trade rules, combine its own institutional advantages with the practice of cutting-edge concepts at home and abroad, deeply promote high-level opening up.
