Message 2023 | Promote high-level opening-up with institutional openness

The report on the implementation of the spirit of the Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly proposes to steadily expand the institutional opening of rules, regulations, management and standards, which is an important guarantee and symbol of high-level opening to the outside world. This year is the first year to implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the first year for China to fully open up to the outside world in the past three years of the COVID-19, the tenth anniversary of the "the Belt and Road" initiative, and the tenth year of efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind.
However, at present, trade protectionism, unilateralism and anti globalization are still unabated. Under the "three high and one low" world economic development trend characterized by high inflation, high interest rates, high debt and low growth, foreign demand has weakened this year. China needs to steadily promote institutional opening and promote high-quality joint construction of the "the Belt and Road". Institutional openness, high-level opening to the outside world and high-quality economic growth determine whether China can achieve the expected goal of economic growth, and is the key to whether China can become the engine, stabilizer and growth source of global economic growth.
Reform and opening up is the magic weapon of high-quality development of China's economy. Over the past 45 years of reform and opening up, China's opening up has gradually taken on the characteristics of all-round, wide-ranging and deep level. High level opening up is the basic requirement for realizing Chinese path to modernization, and is the clear requirement of the report of the Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The opening up after the 20th CPC National Congress requires us to achieve all-round and high-level opening up from trade to science and technology, from investment to finance, from talents to elements, to achieve both internal and external opening up, and to gradually transition from positive to one-way negative list.
At the beginning of the new year, as the first year of implementing the spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress, we have not only a clear institutional plan for high-level opening up and institutional opening up, but also a firm determination to open up, and are full of expectations for the dividends of institutional opening up. We hope to seize the rare historical opportunity in the first year of comprehensive opening up after three years of epidemic and the implementation of the spirit of the Twentieth National Congress this year, and make efforts in the aspects of opening up program, path, grasp and platform, so as to achieve a breakthrough in institutional opening up.
Master the program of opening up. This year is a critical year for the tenth anniversary of the "the Belt and Road" initiative. Up to now, China has signed more than 200 documents with more than 150 countries and international organizations to jointly build the "the Belt and Road". The "the Belt and Road" has become the programmatic document of China's opening up, and the high-quality joint construction of the "the Belt and Road" has become the only way. In the past decade, China has strengthened infrastructure construction and connectivity with countries along the "the Belt and Road", not only building six economic corridors, but also building more than 1000 kilometers of China Laos railway, more than 750 kilometers of Addis Ababa Djibouti railway, more than 480 kilometers of Mombasa Nairobi railway and other projects, as well as building roads, railways, pipe networks and other infrastructure. The Mombasa-Nairobi Railway helped Kenya's GDP increase by 1.5%. The connectivity of facilities has promoted the growth of trade and the improvement of people's welfare. The trade volume between China and the countries along the "the Belt and Road" doubled from $6 trillion to more than $12 trillion. We should make full use of the opportunity of the tenth anniversary of the "the Belt and Road" and the opportunity of the "the Belt and Road" International Cooperation Summit Forum to vigorously promote the multilateral and bilateral cooperation and mechanism construction of the "the Belt and Road", especially the system docking cooperation, and strengthen the establishment of rules, standards and management.
We will expand new ways of opening up. In response to the US-Cana-Mexico agreement and the Indo-Pacific economic framework, China needs to accelerate the signing of bilateral and regional trade and investment agreements this year. In particular, in order to cope with the demand from the United States to build a nearshore and localized supply chain system, we need institutional opening up, high-level opening up, and accelerated cooperation with relevant countries in economy and trade, finance, investment, science and technology, and talent. In 2022, RCEP officially came into force, and the world's largest free trade zone was established. China's export growth to RCEP member countries reached 17.7%. This year, China should not only give full play to the various open dividends brought by RCEP, but also accelerate the conclusion of the China-EU Investment Agreement (CAI) and strengthen China-EU investment cooperation. In the post-epidemic era, with the rapid development of the digital economy and the trend of digital trade, China should accelerate its accession to the Digital Economic Partnership Agreement (DEPA). In addition, China should make institutional arrangements for reform and opening up to the outside world in order to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (CPTPP), and strengthen the pace of opening up in environmental protection, intellectual property rights, state-owned enterprise reform and other aspects. China should speed up the construction of a high standard free trade zone network based on the surrounding areas, radiating the "the Belt and Road" and facing the world, give full play to the institutional advantages of the free trade zone, and accelerate the pace of China's opening up.
Create a new pattern of opening up. To strengthen institutional opening up, we need to take into account both internal and external opening up, and improve the level of opening up. To achieve a high level of opening-up, we must give full play to the advantages of the domestic market, accelerate the construction of a unified national market, and promote the domestic and international double circulation. In the downward period of the world economy, foreign demand is shrinking. We need to accelerate the construction of a unified market, give full play to the advantages of the largest country in goods trade and service trade, and further accelerate the opening up of the service industry. While expanding the opening up of the financial industry, we need to expand the market access of medical and other service industries, and accelerate the institutional opening up. Not only that, high-level opening to the outside world should first do a good job of high-level opening to the outside world, especially accelerate the construction of a market-oriented, rule-of-law, and international business environment, and attract foreign investment with a unified national market and a globally competitive institutional advantage. Three years after the epidemic, facing the outbound tourism brought by China's opening up, especially the opening up of its borders, China should also comprehensively improve the quality and efficiency of supply to meet the demand for consumption upgrading. Not only that, we also need to take advantage of market advantages, talent advantages and manufacturing advantages to build a new development pattern with the domestic big cycle as the main body and the domestic and international double cycle promoting each other.
We will strengthen new platforms for opening up. In the construction of institutional opening up, we should make full use of all kinds of opening up platforms, not only need to continue to make full use of the platforms such as the International Trade Fair, the Canton Fair, the Service Trade Fair and the Consumer Expo, but also need to make good use of various multilateral and bilateral summit mechanisms such as the China-Arab Summit and the China-Sea Summit. In the next few years, the G20, BRICS, APEC and SCO summits will be held in developing countries. We should also take advantage of the advantages of the host country in setting the agenda to accelerate the development of economic globalization and improve global economic governance. We will accelerate China's institutional opening-up and promote high-level opening-up, including supply chain cooperation among BRICS countries. BRICS countries have leading advantages in cooperation in the field of digital economy, including in the formulation of rules and standards. Since the establishment of the BRICS countries, their contribution to world economic growth has exceeded 50%. We should make full use of the advantages of the BRICS countries' resource endowments and strong complementarity in economic structure, strengthen BRICS cooperation and accelerate the construction of new industrial bases in the BRICS countries. The SCO is also expanding steadily. We should speed up the construction of the SCO local economic and trade demonstration zone, accelerate the infrastructure construction and connectivity of SCO members, and improve the level of economic and trade cooperation. At the same time, we should also take the opportunity of the implementation of RCEP to promote regional economic integration and ensure the safety, stability, openness and efficiency of the industrial chain supply chain. (The author is the academician of the Chongyang Institute of Finance, Renmin University of China and the director and researcher of the Cooperative Research Department)