Over 96 percent of the "Two Zones" development tasks approved by the State Council were implemented, nearly 70 pioneering or ground-breaking policies introduced, 66 institutional innovations made, and more than 140 landmark projects and functional platforms rolled out, according to a recent report of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality on further promoting the development of "Two Zones" and Beijing's high-quality development.

The report shows that the "Two Zones" has attracted 7,075 new projects with an estimated investment of more than CNY 1.95 trillion over the past two years. Driven by the development of "Two Zones", in 2021, more than 1,900 new foreign-invested enterprises were set up in Beijing, hitting a record high since 2008. From January to August this year, the paid-in foreign investment in Beijing already totaled USD 15.24 billion, up by 37.9 percent year on year and 17.7 percentage points higher than the national growth. Since the Beijing Stock Exchange started trading around one year ago, 110 companies have been listed, with market capitalization totaling around CNY 200 billion, industries such as strategic emerging ones and advanced manufacturing accounting for over 80 percent and daily transaction value averaging CNY 1.029 billion.

Despite remarkable achievements, the development of "Two Zones" is still confronted with challenges. For example, efforts still need to be made to let policies benefit more, accelerate the synergy of reforms, help key industrial parks contribute more to opening-up, and deepen talent cultivation. To this end, Beijing will speed up efforts to upgrade the development of "Two Zones", focus on matters like cross-border investment and trade, allocation of factors of production, intellectual property rights and dispute settlement, and build a high-standard opening-up system for the service sector in line with international standards. It will advance the building of a demonstration zone for innovative development of trade in services and a port for digital trade, promote the digital transformation of trade in services, and explore systems and rules concerning cross-border data flows. It will also accelerate the opening-up in key fields and the implementation of major reform initiatives in key areas, striving to make ground-breaking progress and landmark results. In terms of general aviation and international delivery and logistics, policy meetings will be organized in a targeted manner to address the most acute bottlenecks affecting the development of enterprises and industries.

(Source: Beijing Daily)