(Yicai) Nov. 5 -- The recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development put promoting high-standard opening up as a higher priority among China’s major targets in the next five years, showing a strong determination to draw momentum from opening up to propel reform and development, and to share opportunities with the rest of the world and promote common development.

Promoting high-standard opening up is of great significance.

Promoting high-standard opening up is a powerful driving force for high-quality development. In the past 40 years, China has achieved economic development under open conditions, and the high-quality development of the economy must be carried out under more open conditions in the future.

The key to achieving high-quality development is to promote technological innovation and accelerate the cultivation of new momentum for economic growth. Global technological innovation has been unprecedentedly intensive and active, and major countries are competing for a leading position in the new technological revolution and industrial transformation.

Even though China has made fruitful technological innovation achievements in the past five years, its ability to conduct basic research, original innovation, and transform technological achievements into applications still needs to be improved.

In this context, China must further promote high-standard opening up to make full use of international resources, gather high-quality production factors, and further promote technological innovation and industrial upgrading.

Promoting high-standard opening up is also an inevitable requirement for deepening economic reform. Since 2018, China has steadily expanded institutional opening-up, continuously reduced barriers restricting production factors, and deeply integrated into the global supply chain, providing solid strategic support for Chinese-style modernization.

Therefore, China should continue to create a market-oriented, law-based, international business environment through high-standard opening up, break down the clogs in the economic cycle, and enhance the vitality of economic development.

Promoting high-standard opening up is also China's responsibility to promote economic globalization. In recent years, economic globalization has encountered headwinds, and some countries have used tariffs to threaten the multilateral trading system. But China has always adhered to the concept of open development.

China's imports and exports of goods have ranked first in the world for the past eight consecutive years. The nation has held the China International Import Expo every year since 2018. The total value of transactions made at the CIIE had exceeded USD500 billion by last year, helping enterprises from all over the world cope with international market fluctuations and demonstrating China's determination to share market opportunities.

Moreover, China has promoted the Belt and Road Initiative, providing Chinese solutions for the reform of the global governance system and helping partner countries achieve economic recovery and sustainable development.

The recommendations lead to further opening up. They made important deployments for continuing to promote high-standard opening up in the next five years.

China will continue to expand opening up at the institutional level, including promoting alignment with high-standard international economic and trade rules, expanding market access, and opening up more areas, particularly in the service sector. Moreover, it will facilitate regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements and expand the network of high-standard free trade areas.

China will pursue high-quality BRI cooperation, strengthen strategic alignment with partner countries, and advance major signature projects and 'small and beautiful' public wellbeing projects. It will deepen practical cooperation with partner countries on trade, investment, industrial development, and people-to-people exchanges and launch new cooperation initiatives across fields, such as green development, artificial intelligence, digital economy, health, tourism, and agriculture.

In terms of trade, China will optimize and upgrade trade in goods, expand green trade and trade in intermediate goods, and pursue balanced development of imports and exports. It will also boost the development of trade in services by encouraging exports, refining the negative list management system for cross-border trade, and improving standards.

In the digital trade sector, China will pursue innovative development and take well-ordered steps to expand opening up, while enhancing the functions of trade promotion platforms and supporting the development of new forms and models of business, such as cross-border e-commerce.

China will foster new strengths in attracting foreign investment, such as improving the services system and foreign investor support, fully implementing national treatment for foreign-funded firms, ensuring efficient, convenient, and safe cross-border data flows, and creating an institutional environment that is transparent, stable, and predictable.

China will also effectively manage outbound investment, improve comprehensive overseas services, and guide the overseas distribution of industrial and supply chains in a rational and orderly manner.

In the next five years, the evolution of the international environment will profoundly affect domestic development. To this end, China should pay more attention to coordinating the domestic and international environments, promote high-standard opening up while building a strong domestic market, accelerate independent development of science and technology, expand space for international cooperation, and cope with external risks, laying a solid foundation for realizing Chinese-style modernization.

The author of this article is Guan Tao, global chief economist at Bank of China International.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione