At the end of September 2013, China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, China's first Pilot Free Trade Zone, was inaugurated. Over the past decade, China has established 21 Pilot Free Trade Zones (PFTZs), forming a reform and opening-up innovation pattern covering the east, west, south, north and south, and integrating the coastal, inland and border areas. These Pilot Free Trade Zones have made remarkable achievements in leading high-level opening-up and promoting high-quality development of the economy, and the dividends of reform and opening-up innovation released by these zones have continuously benefited the world, making China's contribution to promoting the construction of an open world economy.

Leading high-level opening-up to the outside world

China's FTZ is a testing ground for reform and a window for opening up. On this fertile land, various kinds of institutional innovations are emerging. Over the past ten years, the 21 Pilot Free Trade Zones have deployed more than 3,400 reform and pilot tasks, involving the liberalization and facilitation of investment and trade, financial services for the real economy, and the transformation of government functions, forming a relatively complete framework system of policies and institutions in the Pilot Free Trade Zones.

Carina Piña, an economist at the University of Talca in Chile, said that the establishment of the Pilot Free Trade Zone is a major initiative of China to promote opening up to the outside world, through the development of the Pilot Free Trade Zone, the world more truly feel China's unswervingly promote the high level of openness to the outside world's determination and sincerity.

              During the past ten years, China's Pilot Free Trade Zone has made bold innovations in promoting investment and trade liberalization and facilitation. From the launch of the country's first negative list of foreign investment access to the first online international trade "single window"; from the creation of the first batch of free trade accounts, to the establishment of the country's first wholly foreign-owned hospitals, the first wholly foreign-owned automobile manufacturing enterprises ...... The Pilot Free Trade Zone has created many "firsts" in the process of China's reform and opening up, and one system innovation has been promoted from the Pilot Free Trade Zone to the whole country, promoting the construction of an all-round, high-level new pattern of opening up to the outside world.

Saudi financial expert Walid Yusuf said that China's Pilot Free Trade Zone has made remarkable achievements in accelerating the transformation of government functions, exploring the innovation of management mode, and promoting the facilitation of trade and investment, creating a first-class business environment, and becoming a "leader" in China to accelerate the attraction of foreign investment, promote industrial upgrading, and explore the systematic innovations to provide a new impetus to China's high-level opening-up to the outside world. It has become China's "leader" in accelerating foreign investment attraction, promoting industrial upgrading and exploring institutional innovation, providing new impetus for China's high-level opening-up.

Mr. Gu Qingyang, Associate Professor of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, said that the Pilot Free Trade Zone (PFTZ) has strongly promoted the formation of China's all-round opening pattern. In the future, the Pilot Free Trade Zone will fully share the dividends of China's development with the world and become a new high ground for promoting common development.

              Sharing development opportunities with the world

Today, China's Pilot Free Trade Zones have become fertile ground for foreign investment and development. In the first half of this year, the Pilot FTZs contributed 18.4% of the country's foreign investment and 18.6% of the country's import and export trade in less than four-thousandths of a percent of the country's land area; and the actual use of foreign capital in the 21 Pilot FTZs reached 129.66 billion yuan, an increase of 8.2% year-on-year. More and more enterprises are turning policy dividends into development opportunities here.

Masahiro Morinaga, chief representative of the Chengdu Representative Office of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), said that the establishment of the Pilot FTZs has boosted China-Japan service trade. The Pilot Free Trade Zone adopts a negative list system to manage foreign investment, the registration system adopts a registration system instead of a licensing system, and the restrictions on foreign investment in the financial sector have been substantially relaxed, which have played a positive role in promoting the entry of foreign investment into China's development as well as China's deep participation in international trade.

In the Lingang New Area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, Tesla's Shanghai Superfactory recently ushered in the 2 millionth complete vehicle off the production line. From the start of construction in January 2019, to the one millionth vehicle coming off the production line in August 2022, to the two millionth vehicle coming off the production line in September this year, the high-quality business environment has helped this company repeatedly set new records for production efficiency.

Nasser Abdel Al, a professor of Chinese language at Ain Shams University in Egypt, said that China's Pilot Free Trade Zone provides a platform for large international companies to invest and expand their markets in China. After a decade of development, the Pilot Free Trade Zone has proved to the world its important role in expanding China's cooperation with other countries and promoting the development of the world economy.

Wang Xiaosong, a researcher at the National Institute of Development and Strategy of Renmin University of China, said the Pilot Free Trade Zone can make full use of the two domestic and international markets and two kinds of resources, and effectively connect the two markets, attracting more domestic and international enterprises to gather, which not only can provide power for China's economic cycle, but also directly contribute to the development of economic globalization.

             Contribute to building an open world economy

International observers believe that China's Pilot Free Trade Zone (PFTZ) is a major initiative in the history of the development of global free trade parks, and its trade facilitation practice has provided important support for the innovative development of the global foreign trade governance model, and provided a Chinese program for the world to explore the construction of an open world economy through the expansion of independent openness and made an original contribution.

Piña said that China's Pilot Free Trade Zones (PFTZs) have been strategically designed according to their own location advantages, and with the help of trade liberalization to promote the flow of goods, capital and technology between China and its neighboring regions, and drive regional economic growth and cooperation.

Masahiro Morinaga pointed out that the experience accumulated during the construction of China's Pilot Free Trade Zones is exactly what the world needs, and it is of great significance to apply China's high-level Pilot Free Trade Zone system to a wider range of regions and industries in the future.

Pilot free trade zones will not only provide strong support for China's high-level opening-up to the outside world, but also make an important contribution to meeting the challenges of "anti-globalization" and consolidating the achievements of economic globalization. Germain Gref, chairman of the board of directors of Sberbank, Russia's largest state-owned commercial bank, said China's continued promotion of high-level opening-up is of great significance to global development against the backdrop of rising protectionism in some countries and the push to "decouple and break the chain", which is hindering the recovery of the world economy.

"The stronger the headwinds of globalization are, the more China's level of opening up will have to go up a notch. Through the high-quality development of the Pilot Free Trade Zone, China is committed to pushing the world onto the right track of mutually beneficial cooperation." Looking ahead, Gu Qingyang said, he believes the Pilot FTZ will continue to unite the strength of all parties and promote the openness, cooperation and common development of all countries.