China is accelerating reforms across its six new pilot free trade zones (FTZs) through institutional and policy innovations to promote the formation of a new pattern of all-round opening up to boost investment and spur high quality development.

In August 2019, China announced a master plan for new FTZs in the six provincial regions of Shandong, Jiangsu, Guangxi, Hebei, Yunnan and Heilongjiang, as a strategic move to press ahead with reform and opening-up in the new era, bringing the total number of the country's pilot FTZs to 18.

In the Harbin sub-area of Heilongjiang pilot FTZ in northeast China, the Shenzhen (Harbin) Industrial Park took notes from Shenzhen FTZ, making innovations to land supply and approval policies.

Within a year, a total of 3,028 companies moved into the industrial park, with 871 of them being foreign companies.

"The new land-use policies have attracted many enterprises who come to us to discuss cooperation, as they approved of the policies and other supporting measures," said Chen Yugang, deputy general manager of Shenzhen (Harbin) Industrial Park Investment and Development Co. Ltd.

Meanwhile, authorities in Yantai area of the pilot free trade zone (FTZ) in east China's Shandong Province also implemented innovative funding and supporting policies.

Yantai Yinuo Electronic Technology Co.,Ltd. is one of the enterprises to benefit from the covenant-lite loans. This has helped the company from fund shortages,helping to quickly cement its growth as the number of orders doubled compared to the same time period last year.

"We learned that Chairman Lin Liang is a leading talent in Taishan, and the enterprise has many national patents that meet our loan conditions, so we just approved a loan of three million yuan to them," said Lyu Haiying, the vice president of Rural Commercial Bank branch in Yantai area of the pilot FTZ

For the Nanjing area of the Jiangsu Pilot Free Trade Zone in eastern China, it focuses on systematic innovation as breakthrough to high-quality development.

As a result, 108 among the total 141 reform measures have proven to be effective after being implemented over the past year, with over 60 attributing to pioneering systematic reforms.

Meanwhile, more than 1,800 talents from across the world including Nobel laureate have gathered at the are over the years. Eight major innovation centers established by institutions like Cambridge University have been completed.

"Under the current globalization trend, the intellectual property rights of foreign enterprises are also protected, which greatly creates a good business environment," said Cheng Xiucai, deputy director with China (Nanjing) Intellectual Property Protection Center.