China's Northernmost Free Trade Zone Sees Wider Reform and Opening-up

HARBIN, China, Sept. 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- August 30 marks the second anniversary of the establishment of Harbin sub-area of Heilongjiang pilot free trade zone (FTZ). Over the past two years, a total of 8,787 new enterprises have been established in Harbin sub-area. Nearly one-third of the enterprises in the whole city are high-tech. The import from and export to Russia have doubled. A series of data from the Harbin sub-area administrative committee reflect the changes of reform and development in this land.

The Heilongjiang pilot free trade zone (FTZ) is China's northernmost free trade zone with a total area of 119.85 square kilometers. The FTZ has three sub-areas, with one in the provincial capital of Harbin and the other two in the cities of Heihe and Suifenhe on the China-Russia border.

The Harbin sub-area, located on the bank of the Songhua River, has formulated the development plan of building the technology and innovation center, financial center, business convention and exhibition center, international culture and tourism center, and highland for emerging industrial clusters. It also aims to build two industrial clusters with a scale of quasi-100 billion yuan and four industrial clusters with a scale of 50 billion yuan, as well as boost the agglomeration of industrial parks, such as Shenzhen (Harbin) Industrial Park.

"Deepening reform and innovation is the most prominent feature of the free trade zone," said Ren Hailong, deputy director of the Harbin sub-area administrative committee.

Over the past two years, the Harbin sub-area has imitated 206 reform experiences from free trade zones in Shanghai and other places, and accelerated its own exploration. Reform measures were initiated to streamline the approval processes and enforcement forces, which has attracted a number of large and good projects with large scale and sufficient development potential to settle down and grow here.

After submitting electronic materials in the industrial park, Ivan Dutkovsky received the business license for New Arbat Cultural Development Co., LTD. The new approach to cross-border business registration services has saved him a lot of round-trip costs.

Harbin Hylink Information Technology Co., Ltd has seen its production value soar from 7.26 million yuan in 2016 to 110 million yuan in 2020. The corporate headquarter in Shenzhen is moving to Harbin.

Based on its own industrial foundation and comparative advantages, the Harbin sub-area has launched a series of policies from the supply side, such as 10 measures helping enterprises listing. It promises that "the Harbin sub-area can have the policies that other areas have; Policies that are not available in other regions can be negotiated in the Harbin sub-area."This truly gives way to the market and benefits enterprises, further stimulating the market vitality and highlighting the agglomeration effect of the free trade zone.

"We have initially formed five industrial clusters with a scale of tens of billions yuan in equipment manufacturing, bio-medicine, green food, finance and culture and tourism. The bio-medicine industrial cluster has also been approved to be listed in the first batch of strategic emerging industrial clusters in China." said Ren.

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