People's Daily Perspective: Why was the first newly established Free Trade Zone of the 14th Five-Year Plan chosen here?

Source: People’s Daily—Opinion Channel

In the opening year of the “15th Five-Year Plan,” the CPC Central Committee and the State Council made major decisions and approved the establishment of the China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone. This move is absolutely not just a simple expansion of the pilot free trade zone map; rather, it is a strategic arrangement made with an eye on the overall national opening-up landscape.

With the first newly established pilot free trade zone of the “15th Five-Year Plan” set in Inner Mongolia, it sends a clear signal that China will continue to expand high-level opening-up.

Since reform and opening-up, China’s opening-up has begun with the eastern coastal economic zones and coastal open cities, and has gradually expanded to areas along the Yangtze River, the inland, and border regions. “Connecting eight provinces internally, linking Russia and Mongolia externally, and linking Europe and Asia” describes Inner Mongolia; it is the forefront of China’s northern opening-up and an important node connecting the domestic and international dual circulation. Incorporating Inner Mongolia into the pilot free trade zone layout is precisely in line with the real needs of expanding openness from south to north and from coastal areas to border regions, and will help make China’s opening-up pattern more balanced.

Inner Mongolia is an important bridgehead for the state to open up to the north. It is also an important node in the China–Mongolia–Russia economic corridor, with multiple advantages such as ports, transport corridors, hinterlands, and resources. It is the only provincial-level region in the country that simultaneously has the China-Europe Railway Express east corridor and the central corridor. The report of the 20th CPC National Congress pointed out the need to improve the level of opening-up in the central and western regions and the northeast. During the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, China will continue to enhance the role of related regions as key gateways for northern opening-up, follow new trends in deepening economic and trade ties with neighboring countries and promoting industrial cooperation and development in China, further raise the level of opening-up, strengthen gateway functions, improve the construction of major external opening-up corridors, and speed up the formation of a comprehensive opening-up pattern marked by coordinated land-sea linkage both within and beyond the country, mutual support between east and west, and more coordinated north-south development.

Based on the strategic positioning of “two barriers,” “two bases,” and “one bridgehead,” the establishment of a pilot free trade zone in Inner Mongolia can effectively remove bottlenecks in cross-border opening-up corridors, and speed up the transformation of location advantages, resource advantages, and corridor advantages into industrial advantages, development advantages, and competitive advantages. It will further strengthen the opening-up gateway functions of border areas and lay a solid industrial and institutional foundation for the construction of the China–Mongolia–Russia economic corridor. This will be conducive to turning these resource advantages into development momentum, helping to safeguard the security and stability of the country’s industrial and supply chains.

It is also important to see that the focus of pilot free trade zones lies in implementing “trial first and experiment first” based on local conditions, so as to provide replicable and promotable experience for nationwide reform, innovation, and development. For Inner Mongolia, the most important thing is not just to have another “signboard,” but to take on a responsibility for the country to try out institutions, test pressures, and explore new paths—requiring institutional innovation work carried out in a manner tailored to local conditions.

Specifically, how to promote institutional opening-up in border and inland areas, how port-related economies can leap toward hub economies and industrial economies, and how opening-up and development can better coordinate security—these all require pioneering, integrated exploration.

Only by truly making institutional innovation deeper and more solid, and by truly translating reform dividends into tangible development outcomes, can the Inner Mongolia Pilot Free Trade Zone live up to the weight of being “the first,” and write a good “experimentation” essay.

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