Weekly meeting sets agenda to boost trade by removing excessive burdens

A broad range of measures, including support for cross-border e-commerce pilot zones, will improve efficiency and boost trade at ports facing economic headwinds, it was decided at the weekly State Council executive meeting on Wednesday.

The measures also include canceling or delegating a host of approval procedures relating to customs clearance and canceling all nonadministrative approval procedures, according to a statement released after the meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang.

The procedures need to be simplified and implemented within the promised time frame, and their standards should be specified, the statement said.

To ease the financial burden on enterprises, the group decided to cancel irregular administrative charges on exports and imports, regulate charges for operations and services and promote paperless work.

The announcement came after China lowered its annual target for increasing foreign trade to around 6 percent for this year, after the failing to achieve a 7.5 percent growth target in foreign trade, denominated in US dollars, in 2014.

China's trade rebounded in February, with a monthly trade surplus of $60.6 billion, recovering from the previous month's surprise contraction; but a pessimistic prospect for exports in 2015 still is hangs over the nation with challenges in the global economy.

The opening-up of ports has boosted China's trade over past decades. Their number has soared from 51 in 1978 to 287 in 2013. The volume of exported and imported goods during that period increased from $20.64 billion to $4.16 trillion.

Liu Junhong, an economics researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the newly released measures are expected to streamline procedures and facilitate an increase in trade volume.

Many ports, not only in China but also in some Southeast Asian countries, suffer from overstock because of limited infrastructure, and tackling this is a priority for Beijing's transcontinental Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives, Liu said.

The initiatives - networks that will link China with Europe via a host of Asian economies - are designed to boost connectivity through the construction of overland economic corridors and channels of maritime cooperation.

In another development at the meeting on Wednesday, it was decided that plans would be pushed forward for the sustainable development of agriculture and speed up modernization.

Calling agriculture, rural areas and the rural population a priority for the government, the statement said efforts will be made to optimize agricultural layouts, protect arable land and improve the land's quality.

China will build 53.3 million hectares of concentrated and high-quality farmland that delivers high yields despite droughts or excessive rains by 2020, it said.

According to the Government Work Report presented by Li earlier this month, China will ensure that arable land in the world's most populous nation does not fall below 120 million hectares. It will also return an additional 667,000 hectares of marginal farmland back to forest or grassland this year.

It was decided at the meeting that government departments would be asked to ensure that the main development targets mentioned in the report are achieved this year.

zhaoshengnan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/19/2015 page3)