AFP, Beijing :
China will launch three new free-trade zones on Tuesday, official media said today, building on a project that began in Shanghai to much fanfare but has so far undershot expectations.
The free-trade zones (FTZs) will be opened in the southern province of Guangdong, the northern port of Tianjin and the eastern province of Fujian, reported the website of the People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece.
Each will cover around 120 square kilometres (46 square miles), the State Council, China’s cabinet, said.
China’s first FTZ, set up in the commercial hub Shanghai in September 2013, will also be quadrupled in size, it said, bringing it up to a similar scale and likely to take in the financial centre of Lujiazui, along with a manufacturing area and a high-tech base.
When the Shanghai FTZ was launched it promised a range of financial reforms, including full convertibility of the yuan currency and free interest rates, but they remain unfulfilled.
All four zones are subject to the same “negative list” that bans or restricts foreign investment in 122 business areas, ranging from genetically modified seeds and rare earth mining to Internet news services and television broadcasters, a separate State Council statement showed.
China will launch three new free-trade zones on Tuesday, official media said today, building on a project that began in Shanghai to much fanfare but has so far undershot expectations.
The free-trade zones (FTZs) will be opened in the southern province of Guangdong, the northern port of Tianjin and the eastern province of Fujian, reported the website of the People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s mouthpiece.
Each will cover around 120 square kilometres (46 square miles), the State Council, China’s cabinet, said.
China’s first FTZ, set up in the commercial hub Shanghai in September 2013, will also be quadrupled in size, it said, bringing it up to a similar scale and likely to take in the financial centre of Lujiazui, along with a manufacturing area and a high-tech base.
When the Shanghai FTZ was launched it promised a range of financial reforms, including full convertibility of the yuan currency and free interest rates, but they remain unfulfilled.
All four zones are subject to the same “negative list” that bans or restricts foreign investment in 122 business areas, ranging from genetically modified seeds and rare earth mining to Internet news services and television broadcasters, a separate State Council statement showed.
