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Original title: 30 years of Pudong, a taste of China’s openness |
August 30, 2020, Shanghai, aerial photography of Pudong New District in the morning Image source: People’s Vision
From 1990 to 2020, Pudong New Area will usher in its own year of establishment. From the “baby” who decided to develop in the beginning to the “mature man” who became an open plateau, foreign investment is a good friend that has accompanied Pudong’s growth to the end.
In the last 30 years, more than 30,000 foreign-owned companies and more than 300 regional headquarters of multinational companies have settled here. Pudong has become a hot spot for foreign investment and a microcosm of China’s reform and opening-up.
newborn
Before the 1990s in Shanghai, Puxi was thickly lit and most of Pudong was rural and rural. The old saying “I’d rather have a bed in Puxi than a room in Pudong” fully expresses that the people of Shanghai were behind Pudong at the time. The opinion of.
In 1990 Deng Xiaoping, who spent the Spring Festival in Shanghai, looked from Puxi to Pudong, thinking about the game of China’s reform. He was determined, “We must seize the opportunity and make timely decisions … Shanghai is our trump card, and it is a shortcut to build Shanghai,” “Take advantage of Pudong development, do not hesitate, until it is completed.
On April 30, 1990, the twelfth day after the Chinese government announced the development and opening of Pudong, the Shanghai municipal government officially issued the “Ten Preferential Policies for the Development of Shanghai Pudong”, allowing foreign investors invest in energy and transportation projects, establish tertiary industries, and increase foreign investment. For banks, 5 of the 10 preferential policies are related to foreign entrepreneurs.
On the same day, he announced the creation of Shanghai DuPont Agrochemical Co., Ltd. It is the first large-scale joint venture in China’s agrochemical industry and the first multinational company among the world’s top 500 companies to invest in China.
Five months later, the Shanghai municipal government issued the “Provisions to Encourage Foreign Investment in the New Pudong Area”, which proposed exemption from income tax, real estate tax, and industrial and business tax and other measures. preferential to welcome foreign investors.
Since then, Pudong has become a weather vane to attract foreign investment across the country, with “one year in one year and big changes in three years.”
——In July 1992, the Japanese company ITOCHU Corporation, the first foreign company engaged in import and export trade in the national customs zone, was registered and opened in the Waigaoqiao customs zone.
——In September 1992, the People’s Bank of China approved the registration and opening of the American International Association Shanghai Company in Pudong. It was the first foreign insurance company to obtain a wholly owned operating license in China after 1949.
——In November 1994, the China Europe International Business School of Shanghai Jiaotong University, founded by the Shanghai Municipal Government and the European Union, was established in the Jinqiao Development Zone. This is the country’s first Sino-foreign cooperative education project.
——In September 1995, Fuji Bank of Japan settled in Pudong and became the first foreign bank to enter Pudong.
—— In December 1995, the first Sino-foreign joint venture retail company approved by the State Council, First Yaohan Co., Ltd., was opened in Pudong.
——In December 1996, with the approval of the State Council, the People’s Bank of China approved the pilot program of foreign-funded financial institutions operating RMB business in Pudong, Shanghai. Pudong became the first pilot area in the country that allowed foreign-funded financial institutions to operate business in RMB.
By early 1998, 5,000 foreign-invested companies had settled in Pudong, and Pudong’s foreign capital attraction rate was not uncommon. For more than seven years, on average, at least one foreign-funded company was established in Pudong every day.
Lapse
In the new century, with China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, the pace of development of Pudong has accelerated more and more.
According to data released by the Pudong New Area Trade Commission, in the first 11 months of 2019, the Pudong New Area received US $ 8,189 million of foreign capital, submitted 1,814 projects with foreign investment, and added 23 regional headquarters. of multinational companies. These three data establish an annual attraction of foreign investment. new highs. As of June 2020, 35,900 foreign-funded companies had been established in the Pudong New Area, including 245 foreign-funded R&D centers and 344 regional headquarters of multinational companies.
For 30 years, Pudong has always acted as a window into China’s reform and opening up.
In June 2005, with the approval of the State Council Office, Pudong became the first comprehensive reform pilot zone in mainland China, and the first reform was related to foreign investment.
In October of that year, Wei Benhua, then deputy director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, announced the “nine measures” to be piloted in Pudong for the reform of the management of foreign exchange funds of multinational companies. This was a breakthrough in China’s currency management system and it started too. The “first shot” of Pudong’s comprehensive support reforms.
By this time, the headquarters economy had become an important aspect of Pudong’s foreign investment. However, due to restrictions on domestic currency flows, the problem of inability to centralize the management of funds has always plagued the regional headquarters of foreign multinational companies. The introduction of the “Nine Measures” paved the way for the establishment of cross-border capital centers and financial centers for the regional headquarters of foreign-funded multinational companies in China, bringing Pudong’s export-oriented economy to a new level. level, and the investment and operations environment became more international and commercial. 化.
In September 2013, the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the country’s first pilot free trade zone, was established in Pudong, making it a new mountainous area for Pudong to attract foreign investment.
According to data released by the Pudong New Area Trade Commission, in 2005, Pudong attracted US $ 5.654 million in contractual foreign investment, and this indicator reached US $ 16.5 billion in 2018, which almost tripled. Among them, the scale of contractual foreign investment attracted by the free trade zone represents around 80% of the total area.
The free zone is the cradle of the promotion of an innovative system. Over the past seven years, the Shanghai Free Trade Pilot Zone has taken the lead in the areas of trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, transformation of government function, financial openness and innovation, and strengthening of ongoing and ex post supervision. . It has formed a number of important institutional innovations and contributed to the experience. “Among them, the” national treatment prior to foreign investment plus the negative list management system “is the biggest positive point.
Approval is required for items on the list, while industries, fields and companies outside the negative list can enter the market on equal terms according to the law, to do “what is not prohibited by law “. In the past seven years, the negative list has “thinned” six times, and each time it is shortened, the door to China’s opening opens a little. In 2013, when the Shanghai Free Trade Zone first initiated this system, the negative list included a total of 190 measures. Today, the negative national list has been reduced to 33 and the pilot free trade zone has been reduced to 30.
In June 2019, the Shanghai municipal government issued the “Various Opinions on Supporting the Reform and Opening of the New Pudong Area and Restarting to Achieve High-Quality Development in the New Era”, which set out requirements for Higher development for the use of foreign capital: creation of a pool of high-quality and high-quality foreign capital The source of horizontal foreign investment.
The opinions encourage domestic and foreign arbitration, legal services and other related institutions to establish themselves in Pudong, build a dispute resolution platform in the fields of international business, international maritime affairs and international investment, and support the Pudong New Area to introduce more international functional institutions.
This time, Pudong maintained an extremely efficient deployment speed. Four months later, on October 18, 2019, the Shanghai Arbitration and Mediation Center of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO Shanghai Mediation Center) was installed in the Pudong New Area. It was the first establishment of a business organization in China after approval by the Chinese Ministry of Justice. Arbitration institutions of international organizations.
In July 2020, the WIPO Mediation Center in Shanghai successfully mediated the first foreign-related intellectual property case, marking that the WIPO Mediation Center in Shanghai has substantially started its activity.
It is true that any advanced system and policy has certain limitations of the time. The value of Pudong New Area lies in the courage to make continuous advancements and self-innovation, so that foreign investors can always keep a fresh sense of this land. Established in 30, the history of Pudong, which is always changing and changing, and foreign capital will continue.
