China will adopt four policy measures to expand imports

Recently, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the "Opinions on Expanding Imports to Promote the Balanced Development of Foreign Trade" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions") from the Ministry of Commerce and other departments.

The Opinion points out that it is necessary to implement the decisions and deployments of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on promoting the strategy of mutual benefit and win-win opening up, better play the positive role of imports in meeting the upgrading needs of the people's consumption, accelerating institutional and mechanism innovation, promoting economic structure upgrading, and improving international competitiveness. While stabilizing exports, further expand imports, promote balanced development of foreign trade, and promote high-quality economic development, Maintain free trade. The Opinion proposes policy measures to expand imports and promote balanced development of foreign trade from four aspects.

One is to optimize the import structure and promote the upgrading of production and consumption. Support the import of products related to people's livelihoods, adapt to the needs of consumption upgrading and supply improvement, and support the import of daily consumer goods, medicine, rehabilitation, elderly care and other equipment closely related to people's lives. Implement measures to reduce import tax rates on certain commodities, reduce intermediate circulation links, clean up unreasonable price increases, and effectively improve people's living standards. Improve the policy of duty-free stores and expand the import of duty-free goods. Vigorously develop emerging service trade and promote the import of productive services such as architectural design, commercial logistics, consulting services, research and development design, energy conservation and environmental protection, and environmental services. Increase imports of technological equipment that contribute to transformation and development, and increase imports of agricultural and resource products.

The second is to optimize the international market layout. Strengthen international cooperation on the "the Belt and Road", give full play to the role of the multilateral and bilateral economic and trade cooperation mechanism, and take the "the Belt and Road" related countries as the import sources of key development. Accelerate the implementation of the free trade zone strategy, actively promote the free trade zone negotiations with relevant countries and regions, and accelerate the construction of a high standard free trade zone network based on the surrounding, radiating the "the Belt and Road" and facing the world. Implement preferential arrangements for imported goods and services from least developed countries.

The third is to actively play the role of multi-channel promotion. Organize the China International Import Expo well. Continuously leverage the role of foreign investment in expanding imports, improve the management system related to foreign investment, and optimize the domestic investment environment. Promote effective interaction between foreign trade and investment, accelerate the signing of high-level investment agreements, and improve the facilitation level of foreign investment. Innovate import trade methods, accelerate the replication and promotion of mature experience and practices in cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones, and accelerate the promotion of parallel import pilot projects for automobiles.

The fourth is to improve the conditions for trade liberalization and facilitation. Vigorously cultivate import promotion platforms and form a group of national import trade promotion and innovation demonstration zones with outstanding demonstration and driving effects. Optimize the import customs clearance process and improve the level of import trade facilitation. Reduce institutional costs in the import process and eliminate unreasonable fees in the import process. Accelerate the improvement of the domestic business environment, strengthen the construction of a foreign trade integrity system and intellectual property protection, promote the construction of a quality traceability system for imported consumer goods with a defect recall system as the core, crack down on counterfeit and shoddy goods, and standardize and improve the domestic market order.