Hunan issues guideline to develop new forms, new models of foreign trade

The Hunan Provincial People's Government recently issued a guideline for accelerating development of new forms and new models of foreign trade. According to the guideline, Hunan will further boost the development of new forms and new models of foreign trade. In 2025, the overall foreign trade development level will be in the front rank in central China, and some new forms of trade will take the lead nationwide. The new forms and new models of foreign trade will make greater contributions to tax revenue and employment, with their import and export value taking up more than 15% of the provincial total.

The guideline underlines boosting all-round opening up with a focus on Belt and Road cooperation, advancing supply-side structural reform as the main task, developing new forms and new models, and expanding areas of development and elevating standard of foreign trade. Six major tasks were listed:

- Boost innovative development of cross-border e-commerce. By 2025, the number of cross-border e-commercial enterprises with an output value of more than 100 million yuan will reach 20.

- Promote market procurement trade. By 2025, the value of export in market procurement trade will exceed 15 billion yuan.

- Explore use of local currencies for the settlement of trade with African countries. By 2025, the trade volume between Hunan and Africa will hit 100 billion yuan, accounting for more than 10% of Hunan's total import and export value.

- Expedite form innovation of trade in the pilot free trade zones. By 2025, the imports and exports of Hunan's free trade zones will take up more than 30% of the province's total.

- Boost construction of overseas warehouse service system. By 2025, there will be five overseas warehouse enterprises featuring informatization, intelligentization, diversification, and localization.

- Improve supporting capacity of platforms and channels to foreign trade. Hunan will speed up construction of five international logistics channels and freight hubs with reasonable layout, to expand transport capacity and improve efficiency.

The guideline also put forward detailed supporting measures from the perspectives of strengthening leadership, implementing tax and fiscal policies in an all-round way, and strengthening financial support. Focuses will be put on policy support, capital guidance, supervision and innovation, and financing and credit insurance. These measures will facilitate a sound, sustainable, and innovative development of the new forms and models of foreign trade.