On May 11, Beijing issued the Negative List for Cross-Border Data Transfers (2025 Edition) for the China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone and the Comprehensive Demonstration Zone for Expanding and Opening-Up the National Service Industry, along with supporting administrative measures. Beijing is among the first regions in China to extend the negative list management mechanism for cross-border data transfers from the Pilot FTZ to the entire administrative region of a province or provincial-level municipality. The newly compiled "Two Zones" negative list adds four innovative sectors: medical devices, autonomous driving (intelligent connected vehicles), trade and logistics, and banking. Its scope of application has been expanded from the Pilot FTZ to the entire city of Beijing.

The "Two Zones" negative list policy—consisting of one set of unified administrative measures and sector-specific negative lists covering nine fields—will expand its scope of application from the Pilot FTZ to the Comprehensive Demonstration Zone for Expanding and Opening-up the National Service Industry, namely the entire Beijing municipality. This expansion will allow preferential policies to benefit all enterprises across the city.

In total, the "Two Zones" negative list covers nine industrial sectors, 67 business scenarios and 612 data fields:

1.      Five sectors from the first FTZ negative list are directly incorporated, including automobiles, pharmaceuticals, civil aviation, retail and artificial intelligence;

2.      Four new sectors are newly developed, namely medical devices, autonomous driving (intelligent connected vehicles), trade and logistics, and banking.

Meanwhile, in line with the principle of "innovations piloted in one region and replicated across others", Beijing has established a mechanism for applying negative lists developed by other provinces and municipalities.

(Source: Beijing Daily)