A conference and award ceremony on promoting the collaboration and coordination zones of the Hunan Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) were held at the Hunan FTZ Investment Service Center (Airport Block) on July 26, 2023. Licenses were awarded to twenty-four economic functional zones from Hunan's 11 cities and one prefecture including Changsha, Hengyang, Zhuzhou, Xiangtan, and Xiangxi, becoming the first batch of the collaboration and coordination zones of the Hunan FTZ.

By the end of June, 33,000 enterprises had been newly set up and 321 major projects introduced in the Hunan FTZ, with a total investment of 503.9 billion yuan. The Hunan FTZ has three areas in Changsha, Yueyang, and Chenzhou, covering a limited range of industries and opening-up platforms. The establishment of collaboration and coordination zones aims to realize policy expansion, regional linkage, functional complementarity, and industrial synergy, and to enhance the exemplary, leading, radiating, and driving role of the Hunan FTZ.

The Office of the Hunan FTZ Leading Group organized an evaluation, approving 24 economic functional zones provincewide to be the first batch of Hunan FTZ collaboration and coordination zones, including the Hunan Xiangjiang New Area and the high-tech zones in Hengyang, Zhuzhou, Xiangtan, and Xiangxi.

Efforts will be made in four aspects in the development of these zones:

- Replicate and promote the reform experiences of the national and Hunan pilot free trade zones;

- Focus on key matters such as enterprise start-up, construction project permits, customs clearance, and financing, to simultaneously create a business environment with the Hunan FTZ featuring "the fewest approval requirements, the highest efficiency, and the best investment environment", and introduce benchmarking policies to support the development of industrial parks, zones, and enterprises;

- Work together with the Hunan FTZ to carry out collaborative innovation, and encourage the first trials and simultaneous follow-up on the 121 pilot reform tasks undertaken by the Hunan FTZ; and,

- Implement industrial and investment linkages with the Hunan FTZ, and explore the establishment of new industrial development models with the Hunan FTZ as the headquarters and collaboration and coordination zones as the bases, and with the Hunan FTZ playing the leading role while collaboration and coordination zones the supporting roles.

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

Translator: Yu Jiangjiang

Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn