(Yicai) Feb. 7 – The Lingang Special Area, a key testing ground for economic and trade policies within the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, will further enhance institutional opening-up, the head of the local administration announced today.

The Lin-gang Special Area of the China Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone will conduct stress tests to facilitate a deeper opening of key service industries, including cross-border and offshore finance, offshore trade, cross-border data flows, transborder medical services, and high-energy shipping, as well as to enhance the freedom and efficiency of the Yangshan Special Comprehensive Bonded Zone, implementing all-round innovative development in the area, according to Chen Jinshan, director of the FTZ management committee. 

Located in Lingang, near the Yangshan Deep-Water Port, the Yangshan zone provides duty-free storage and streamlined customs clearance, supporting international trade, logistics, and advanced manufacturing.

The latest initiative aims to enhance administrative efficiency, refine market mechanisms, align with international standards, and accelerate the growth and development of enterprises across all sectors, Chen added, speaking during the annual conference on optimizing the business environment.

Putting Businesses First

"We are already planning a series of new institutional innovations," said Zhang Nan, deputy director of the committee's institutional development department. The committee will actively gather feedback from enterprises and adapt policies to drive business development, Zhang added.

Zhang also stated that enterprises proposing reform initiatives will be the first to participate in pilot programs. Once these pilots prove successful, the committee will expand the newly formed policies to other relevant enterprises and eventually apply them to the whole industry.

Lu Yu, the director of the committee's high-tech and innovation department, said that Lingang is also nurturing the business environment by fostering a robust industrial ecosystem as a complete ecosystem can become one of the area's most important selling points to attract new investment while helping existing enterprises enhance their core competitiveness. The magnitude of improvement by a solid ecosystem should be enormous, he added.

To this end, Lingang is supporting the development of five frontier industries, including integrated circuits, civil aviation, intelligent vehicles, high-end power equipment, and software information and data services, to establish comprehensive industrial ecosystems, Lu said.

Lu also stated that Lingang is proactively planning for several future industries and ecosystems, ensuring a forward-looking industrial layout with emerging fields such as brain-computer interfaces, extended reality, embodied intelligence, and fusion energy.

For projects related to the aforementioned key industries, administrative processes are promised to be highly efficient. The committee is confident that investment contracts can be signed within one month, land allocation will be done within three months, and construction can start within six months, according to Lu.

"Lingang already has the foundation of a world-class business environment, and it operates like an innovation laboratory -- constantly testing new policies and models to create more opportunities for enterprises and investors," Eddie Yan, managing partner of Deloitte's government and public services in East China, said in an interview with Yicai.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine