Recently, the State Council issued the "Several Measures on Promoting Systematic Opening-up with International High Standards in Qualified Free Trade Zones and Free Trade Port Pilot Areas" (hereinafter referred to as "the Measures"). The Measures will pilot the alignment with international high-standard economic and trade rules in qualified free trade zones, including Tianjin, and Hainan Free Trade Port, steadily expand systematic opening-up, and involve six specific measures.

In terms of promoting innovative development in goods trade, multiple specific measures are included. For example, supporting pilot areas to carry out import pilot programs for key industries' remanufactured products; allowing specific goods to temporarily enter the pilot areas from overseas without paying tariffs, import value-added tax, and consumption tax after providing guarantees; under the condition of complying with China's customs supervision requirements and completing necessary quarantine procedures, customs in the pilot areas will release air and express goods within 6 hours upon arrival, provided that the necessary customs documents have been submitted.

At the same time, trade in services will also become more liberalized and convenient. The Measures propose that in addition to specific new financial services, if Chinese financial institutions are allowed to conduct certain new financial services, foreign financial institutions in the pilot areas should be allowed to provide similar services. Furthermore, enterprises registered in the pilot areas and individuals working or living in the pilot areas are allowed to lawfully purchase overseas financial services across borders.

Regarding the exchange of business personnel, the accompanying spouses and family members of experts transferred within foreign-invested enterprises in the pilot areas can enjoy the same entry and temporary stay period as the experts. Senior management personnel of foreign companies planning to establish branch offices or subsidiaries in the pilot areas will have their temporary entry and stay period extended to 2 years, and their accompanying spouses and family members will enjoy the same entry and temporary stay period.

Measures to promote the healthy development of digital trade include improving the system for protecting consumer rights in online commercial activities and prohibiting relevant departments and their staff from requiring the transfer or acquisition of source code of mass-market software as a condition for import sales.

In addition, the pilot areas will optimize the business environment in government procurement, intellectual property rights, competition policy, environmental protection, and other fields. Meanwhile, a sound and comprehensive risk prevention and control system will be established, including the establishment of a major risk identification and systematic risk prevention system, improvement of the safety assessment mechanism, strengthening of risk prevention and resolution, implementation of risk prevention and control responsibilities, and enhanced supervision before, during, and after events.