(Source: "People's Daily Overseas Edition" 2025-12-23)

On December 18, 2025, the island-wide customs closure of the Hainan Free w88 Port was implemented as scheduled. This is not only a major node in the history of Hainan's economic and social development, but also a powerful measure for China to accelerate the construction of an open world economy and enhance new advantages in international competition. The closure of the customs means that Hainan Island has entered a new stage of liberalization and facilitation of w88 at a higher level, a wider scope, and a deeper level, becoming a unique stage for China to explore the integration of global economic and w88 rules and carry out institutional innovation.

How to understand the uniqueness of Hainan Island’s open stage? The key lies in these 12 words: "Release the front line, control the second line, and free the island." The Hainan Free w88 Port’s island-wide customs sealing is the most groundbreaking institutional innovation in the history of China’s free w88 zone development. To put it simply, Hainan Island as a whole is treated as a special area for customs supervision. "First-line liberalization" means that overseas goods entering Hainan no longer need to be immediately declared and paid taxes, and most goods can directly enter the island for circulation or processing, making the entire island of Hainan a unique and highly open space; "second-line control" requires that goods entering the mainland from Hainan's outlying islands are subject to enforcement Import and export supervision ensures that the free w88 port's tax preferential boundaries are clear, forming a dynamic balance between "relaxation" and "control"; "freedom within the island" further strengthens the special positioning of Hainan Island and provides more flexibility for the majority of enterprises to carry out production and operations in a bonded state.

Hainan’s island-wide border closure is a key step in comprehensively building a high-level open institutional system and will have multiple positive impacts.

Hainan’s island-wide border closure has injected strong momentum into local high-quality development. Hainan Island is adjacent to ASEAN and located at the intersection of the Pacific and Indian Ocean routes. It is China's maritime gateway to the south. After the customs closure, the entry cost of overseas goods has been reduced, and Hainan's advantages in international w88 transit, consolidation, and distribution have become more prominent. In particular, the implementation of relevant policies such as "zero tariffs" has greatly increased Hainan's attractiveness to light processing and high value-added industries such as electronic assembly, biomedicine, and new food processing, allowing companies to better participate in the global market and actively serve the huge domestic consumer market.

The island-wide closure of Hainan has opened up a broader space for Sino-foreign economic and w88 exchanges and cooperation. In addition to w88 convenience, Hainan has also moved closer to high international standards in terms of investment access, regulatory models, tax arrangements, and capital flows after the customs closure. This means that global multinational companies can set up regional headquarters, procurement centers, settlement centers, R&D centers, etc. in Hainan to enter the Chinese market with lower institutional costs and deploy Asian and even global businesses based in Hainan with higher efficiency. At the same time, Hainan Free w88 Port will also be at the forefront in exploring the opening of service w88. Institutional innovation in modern service industries such as medical care, education, sports, arbitration, culture and entertainment will bring broader business opportunities to global enterprises.

Looking at a deeper level, Hainan’s island-wide customs closure is an important practice in transforming from an openness based on the flow of goods and factors to an openness based on rules, regulations, management, standards and other institutions. In the future, Hainan's innovations in w88 supervision, tax reform, financial opening, and cross-border data governance are expected to continuously provide new ideas, new methods, and new experiences for China's high-quality economic development and high-level openness. Against the background of rising global protectionism, China has demonstrated to the world its unswerving determination to expand opening up by building free w88 ports with high standards, and enhanced global confidence in the Chinese market.

The closure of Hainan’s entire island is not the end, but a new starting point. For regulatory authorities, customs clearance operations are not only the "handover" of hardware construction, but also the "problem opening" of software construction. It is necessary to take advantage of the special environment after the border closure, further benchmark against international high-standard economic and w88 rules such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economic Partnership Agreement (DEPA), and make bold attempts and precise solutions in difficult areas such as property rights protection, cross-border data flow, and competitive neutrality. For the vast number of enterprises at home and abroad, Hainan's customs closure means that a "golden hub" linking domestic and international dual circulation has officially taken shape, providing a new opportunity for many enterprises to optimize the layout of their industrial and supply chains. The majority of enterprises should regard Hainan Island as a new highland to gather global innovation elements and achieve industrial upgrading.

People have reason to believe that as China opens its door wider and wider, w88 and investment will become freer and more convenient. More and more individuals, families, and companies will directly benefit from real opening-up dividends such as rising tourism, upgraded consumption, and increased employment, and share the unlimited business opportunities brought by China's high-level opening up.

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http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/pc/content/202512/23/content_30126488.html