The first batch of 47 institutional innovation achievements in the China (Hunan) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) was issued recently and will be promoted to the whole province. This aimed to provide reference for municipal and prefectural governments and relevant departments to deepen reform and expand opening up, and share the dividends of reform and innovation.

Since the Hunan FTZ was established in September 2020, it has adhered to institutional innovation as the core; centered on the three strategic tasks and the functional positioning of the area; and, focused on the actual demands of market entities. An array of institutional innovation achievements have been made in accordance with the requirements of differentiation, originality, and integration.

Each institutional innovation has achieved tangible results, according to the Hunan FTZ Work Leading Group. For example, it pioneered exempting on-site audits on healthy food, organic produce, and source of production. The registration time for exporting agricultural products enterprises has been greatly reduced from the previous 20 working days to 4 working days, which helped expand the scale of agricultural exports.

It took the lead in implementing the new model of intelligent transformation of the manufacturing industry with contracts and agreements as the core. This enabled the construction machinery industry in FTZ Changsha Area to achieve a historic leap from 80 billion yuan to 160 billion yuan.

It was also the first in China to offer “one-off acceptance, parallel approval” management service for foreigners coming to work in Hunan. The approval time has been shortened from the original 30 working days to the shortest 10 working days, providing convenience and good services for foreigners to come to Hunan.

The aforementioned institutional innovation achievements cover six major aspects: tradefacilitation reform, high-quality industrial development, China-Africa economic and trade cooperation, financial opening up and innovation, government function transformation, and legal service guarantee. Among them, 23 achievements were pioneers nationwide and 24 ones province-wide. From the perspective of areas, Changsha Area has completed 24 innovation achievements, Yueyang Area 7, Chenzhou Area 7, and the three areas have participated in 9 at the same time.

This article is from the Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Yu Jiangjiang

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn