China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) held a regular press conference in Beijing on January 15, briefing the media the operation of the pilot free trade zone service centers and CCPIT overseas representative offices. CCPIT Vice Chairman Lu Pengqi attended and addressed the conference. More than 30 media outlets, including the People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency and CCTV were in attendance.
Lu Pengqi noted, the establishment of CCPIT free trade zone service center is an innovation of CCPIT in implementing China’s development strategy and offering full services for the construction of the pilot free trade zone. Meanwhile, CCPIT overseas representative offices have largely contributed to trade and investment promotion between China and other countries, offering legal services for Chinese enterprises as well as boosting the open economy and serving foreign trade affairs.
Pilot Free Trade Zone Service Centers Come into Operation
Lu Pengqi added, “according to our investigation, enterprises in the pilot free trade zones have huge demands for the services from CCPIT. By setting up service centers, CCPIT could make full use of its trade promotion resources at home and abroad, and extend its trade and investment promotion service and legal affairs service to the pilot free trade zones so as to effectively assist enterprises in improving the management level and raising its global competitiveness.
Up to now, the construction of the service center has been undergoing smoothly. By the end of 2017, CCPIT has set up 11 pilot free trade zone service centers, which have covered almost all pilot free trade zones. All the service centers will officially come into operation starting from January 2018.
Lu Pengqi said, the service center will integrate trade promotion resources and better serve enterprises. It will play an essential role in the following seven aspects. First, researches will be carried out on trade zone’s business environment, effect of policy implementation and rules and regulations in trade zones at home and abroad, providing references for deepening the reform and innovating systems. Second, service center can host events to promote the policy of the free trade zones and enable the business community to better understand the trade zones. Third, it can organize enterprises to participate in exhibitions, conferences and forums at home and abroad, as well as business match-making meetings. Meanwhile, it can assist provinces in attracting foreign investment for local enterprises and encouraging Chinese companies to “go global”. Fourth, it can receive foreign business delegations to promote two-way investment and eco-tech cooperation. Fifth, it can provide a variety of services, which include consultation, legal advice, commercial certification, intellectual property rights, credit information and financing guarantee, and dealing with economic and trade frictions for enterprises. Sixth, it can organize various economic and trade training sessions. Seventh, it can provide services tailor-made for the pilot free trade zones and enterprises as per their particular requirements.
Currently, the pilot free trade zone service centers are undergoing smoothly. CCPIT Guangzhou Pilot Free Trade Zone Nansha Service Center has made full use of CCPIT’s official websites and relevant resources to promote itself and attract investment from abroad. Meanwhile, the center has also assisted the enterprises in the zone in participating in international trade exhibitions and expositions, and helping them to expand overseas market. Nansha Service Center, as a comprehensive service platform dedicated to facilitating trade and investment, helped small and medium-sized enterprises develop globally.
CCPIT Representative Offices Speak for Chinese Business Community
Unlike the newly-established pilot free trade zone service center, CCPIT overseas representative offices were established much earlier. CCPIT Representative Office in the Gulf Area, set up in the UAE in 1985, was the first representative office abroad. A series of representative offices were established later in the developed world such as Europe, North America, Japan, etc. At present, the number of overseas representative offices of CCPIT and its related agencies has reached 34, forming a service network along the Belt and Road countries and around the globe.
Lu Pengqi said, CCPIT representative offices have assisted Chinese enterprises in settling trade friction and disputes.
“When dealing with trade friction, CCPIT representative offices in the US, Canada and Mexico respectively attended hearings, including the cases with regard to US’ ‘anti-dumping and countervailing investigation’ against stainless steel sheet imported from China, Canada’s ‘anti-dumping and countervailing investigation’ against steel components imported from China, and Mexico’s anti-dumping of solder wire imported from China. Representing for the Chinese business community, CCPIT’s proposal of settling disputes through dialogue has won positive responses, eased the trade friction and reduced the losses,” added Lu.
In serving enterprises, the representative offices have released information about economic and trade policies and market conditions, and assisted in organizing business events and arranged exchange visits. In the meantime, they have promoted Chinese and foreign enterprises to make contacts so as to enable them to have obtained numerous trade and investment opportunities. They have also helped enterprises having “gone global” to benefit from favorable investment policies from the destination countries so that they can seek better development that caters to the need of the locals.
In speaking for the Chinese business community, CCPIT representative offices have shouldered the responsibility of the secretariat of the chambers of commerce and industry for the Chinese enterprises, from which they will speak for the business community and promote cooperation.. The representative office in Brazil helped to win a tax-related lawsuit, avoiding a heavy fine up to 285 million yuan. The representative office in Russia assisted the Chinese telecommunications companies in negotiating with Russian Communications Regulatory Agency, pushing the Russian side to lift the import blockade of some Chinese instant messaging software. The representative offices in Germany, the Republic of Korea and other countries helped Chinese enterprises safeguard their rights and interests by reporting the problems to the relevant departments with regard to residence permit, unfair bidding and double imposition that Chinese citizens have encountered.
In terms of public diplomacy, the representative office in Japan took advantage of the 45th anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations to organize various economic and trade exchanges, which has promoted the friendship between China and Japan.
“Our aim is to make CCPIT representative offices play more important roles in assisting Chinese enterprises abroad and speaking for the Chinese business community, creating an overseas network that cater to China’s largest trade promotion agency,” added Lu.