Shanghai Free Trade Zone Lingang New Area: Carry out pilot projects for the integration of local and foreign currencies in free trade accounts and explore free convertibility of capital

China News Service, Shanghai, September 20 (Li Shuzheng, Yu Mei) At the policy conference held on the 20th in the Lingang New Area of ​​the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (hereinafter referred to as the new area), Zheng Wufu, deputy director of the Shanghai Headquarters of the People's Bank of China, said that major financial reform measures will be promoted to be piloted in the new area. Encourage multinational companies to set up global or regional capital management centers and other headquarters institutions in Shanghai.

Data map: On August 20, the Lingang New Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone was officially unveiled. At the same time, the Lingang New Area Administrative Service Center has also provided services to enterprises and citizens as a gold medal "waiter". The picture shows that the center currently uses an area of ​​nearly 2,000 square meters and has five functional areas. Photo by China News Service reporter Zhang Hengwei

According to Zheng Wufu, a series of financial policies to support the construction of the new area mainly include three aspects: increasing the pilot efforts of financial reform and opening up; improving the level of high-quality development of financial services for the real economy; and building a financial management system that is more in line with the requirements of high-level opening up.

According to the "Several Measures to Support the Innovative Development of the Financial Industry in the Lingang New Area of ​​the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone" (hereinafter referred to as "Several Measures") released on the same day, the new area will select key financial areas that require national strategic needs, large international market demand, and high openness requirements but other regions do not yet have the conditions for implementation, and build a number of functional financial platforms with a higher degree of openness, create core functions for the allocation of global high-end financial resource elements, and expand the depth and breadth of cross-border financial services. Key areas of support include benchmarking international standards and developing cross-border financial services; strengthening the flexible use of cross-border funds; and promoting the construction of fund management centers.

In terms of cross-border financial business, financial institutions are supported to provide cross-border financial services such as cross-border bond issuance, cross-border investment and mergers and acquisitions, and centralized cross-border capital operations for enterprises and non-residents in the region in accordance with international rules and on the premise of legal compliance and controllable risks. Enterprises in the area are supported to carry out real and legal offshore transfer business, and financial institutions can provide efficient and convenient cross-border financial services to enterprises in the new area in accordance with international practices. Support enterprises and institutions in the region to carry out shipping financing and settlement, shipping index derivatives, green finance and other businesses.

In terms of strengthening the flexible use of cross-border funds, we will carry out pilot projects for the integration of local and foreign currencies in free trade accounts and explore free inflows and outflows of capital and free convertibility. Funds raised by enterprises in the zone from abroad, funds raised by qualified financial institutions from abroad, and income from the provision of cross-border services can be used independently for business and investment activities in the new area and overseas. Support honest and high-quality enterprises in the region to carry out pilot projects to facilitate foreign exchange receipts and payments.

In terms of promoting the construction of a fund management center, the entry threshold for conducting centralized cross-border fund operations should be appropriately lowered to further facilitate the two-way collection of cross-border funds by enterprises in the region and achieve centralized fund management.

Several measures also make it clear that for other special or innovative businesses, personalized services and customized policies will be adopted to study and solve them.

In accordance with the principle of consistency between domestic and foreign investment, several measures are applicable to domestic and foreign financial institutions and financial functional institutions that are newly registered and established in the New Area and whose fiscal accounts are located in the New Area, have independent legal person status, have sound financial management systems and good credit.