A SERIES of innovative measures, including institutional and industrial reforms, were revealed in Qianhai yesterday, a day before the second anniversary of the establishment of the Qianhai-Shekou area of the Guangdong Pilot Free Trade Zone (Qianhai-Shekou area).
An area that is expected to provide new incentives and examples of development to the rest of the country, Qianhai has been given policy and financial support to think big and make bold practices.
Among Qianhai's top designs, adopting some legal practices from the Hong Kong legal system is undoubtedly among many firsts in the country. For instance, the Qianhai Cooperation Zone People's Court has formed a Hong Kong jury to help solve Hong Kong, Macao and foreign cases; Hong Kong lawyers can open cooperative law firms with mainland partners; and the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Mediation Alliance that was founded in 2013 can help solve disputes for clients from the three areas. The alliance consists of 14 service centers focusing on mediation, complaints, arbitration and other related services and has worked with Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration in Qianhai to ensure fairness.
As for cross-border trade supervision, Qianhai is now working on building an origin tracing system.
On Wednesday, staff from the city's market and quality supervision commission displayed a newly developed software that can be activated by using the "shaking" function on WeChat. While walking in a local shopping mall, such as CTFHOKO, customers can open their WeChat and apply the shake function to find out detailed information, including credit records, product quality and customer reviews of each store.
At the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong International Winetesting Center, wines that have been inspected by the China Certification and Inspection (Group) Co. are labeled with QR codes that were developed by the center. By scanning the QR code, customers can find information about the origin, inspection, customs, logistics and quality of the wine. The center will add inspection information about the wine and upload reports. The center also applies tracing technology to milk powders and other local imported products.
To simplify administrative procedures and save time for companies that desire to register in Qianhai, the authorities adjusted the method of handling the materials by giving one form to foreign-owned companies and allowing them to hand in just one set of documents at a single affairs counter.
Once the registration has been approved, they will receive all of the required certificates at once. The procedure has thus shortened the time from 20 workdays to three workdays.
In addition, measures such as setting up an offshore product-inspecting center, an elements trading platform, digitalizing the supervision system of the Shekou port and exploring business modes of cross-border trading are all novel for the city.
In 2016, a total of 106 institutional innovations were made in Qianhai and six of them were replicated and practiced elsewhere in the country, according to Qianhai Authority.
On April 21, 2015, the China (Guangdong) Pilot Free Trade Zone was established. As one of the zone's three areas (the other two areas are Hengqin in Zhuhai City and Nansha in Guangzhou City), the Qianhai-Shekou area was inaugurated six days later.