2016年CRI China decides to add 7 new free trade zones

The new FTZs will be located in the provinces of Liaoning, Zhejiang, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi, as well as in the Municipality of Chongqing.

The expansion comes 3 years after the first FTZ was launched in Shanghai.

That program was meant to test a broad range of economic reforms, including more openness to foreign investment and fewer restrictions 1 on capital flows.

A second group of FTZs was later approved for Tianjin, Fujian and Guangdong in late 2014.

Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng says the decision to expand the number of FTZs to eleven should be viewed as a sign of the Chinese government's desire to open the country up even more to outside investment.

"The new FTZs will closely follow the key principle of structural 2 innovation. We are using the existing pilot projects as the main blueprint 3, but will adjust the rules according to the local situations. By doing this, we ultimately hope to deepen our overall reform strategies."

The new free-trade zone in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning is being designed to try to transform the old industrial base in the region, with the ultimate goal of turning the 'rust 4 belt' into a competitive region once again.

The FTZ in Zhejiang will focus mostly on commodities, with trade rules being liberalized.

Henan has been tapped for transportation and logistics development.

In neighboring Hubei, high-tech 5 bases going to be built to help bolster 6 the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

The remaining three new FTZs are going to be located in China's less-developed western region.

While the new FTZs will all have their specific goals, all will be built up through the "negative list" concept.

Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng says by providing a list of areas that are off-limits to foreign investment, rather than a lengthy 7 list of areas which are open, it will make investment much more streamlined.

"In terms of reform, we have introduced the negative lists for foreign investment which greatly simplifies the administrative 8 approval process. And in the spirit of increased openness, we have also cut special management procedures for foreign investment from 190 items in 2013 to 122 at present. We've also taken steps to make it easier for foreign firms to move products into China, cutting customs clearance 9 times by some 40-percent."

Chinese authorities note that under the loosened policies, some 49-hundred foreign-funded firms were established in the existing four FTZs through the first half of this year, with investments worth close to 54-billion US dollars in total.

A recent poll conducted by the State Council's Development Research Center shows 82 percent of the firms surveyed are reporting "notable progress" in the business environment, while 95 percent have expressed optimism about their future development.

For CRI, I'm Xie Cheng.