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WHILE
there is concern that the new Beijing leadership
is becoming more rigid politically, warning
all against yearnings for representative
government or western cultural values, there
also appears to be a countervailing liberalising
influence in trade and commerce.
Recently,
the Chinese cabinet, or State Council, approved
of Shanghai becoming a free trade zone (FTZ)
after it had won Ministry of Commerce approval
to allow trade to be conducted in ways in
which officialdom plays less of a role -
"deregulation with Chinese characteristics",
so to speak.
Today,
Guangzhou, Xiamen and Tianjin are actively
seeking such rights, China Business News
has revealed. Of course, free trade zones
are not all the same. They have different
levels of freedom. The most basic is free
trade in goods; the second level is trade
of services, and finally, the highest level
of all, is in the area of investment.
Guangzhou
is busy working on a plan for applying to
Beijing to set up a free trade zone at its
major container terminal in the Nansha District
about halfway up the Pearl between Shenzhen
and Guangzhou city itself.
Thus
far, Guangdong's provincial authorities
are reticent, but those in the know say
Nansha has advantages over its rivals because
its plan is part of a comprehensive scheme
to benefit the Pearl River Delta and geared
to cooperate with Hong Kong and Macau.
What
is known is that the Guangdong provincial
government announced on July 23 a list of
priority tasks to be done this year, including
applying for free trade zone status for
Nansha as part of Pearl River Delta development
plan.
An
unnamed official from the Guangzhou government
disclosed that Nansha might apply later
this year. He noted that since Shanghai
started applying for setting up free trade
zone, "free trade zone" has become
a hot topic nationwide with other major
cities doing the same.
But
the official said it was still under study,
and that no plan had been worked out, including
where the facility will be located or how
it would be run.
Yet
a proposed Nansha Pilot Free Trade Zone
is supposed to cover 24.52 square kilometres,
comprising the northern and southern part
of the Longxue Island and the Nansha Bay.
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