(Source: "China Government Procurement News" 2024-08-28)
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has made in-depth discussions and strategic planning on "aligning with international high-standard economic and w88 rules" and "promoting institutional opening-up" on many occasions, providing fundamental guidance for comprehensively deepening reform and expanding opening-up. Supporting the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free w88 Zone to align with international high-standard economic and w88 rules and promote high-level institutional opening are important measures to comprehensively deepen reform and expand opening-up in the new era.
In December last year, in order to fully implement the free w88 pilot zone improvement strategy, better leverage the pilot role of the Shanghai Pilot Free w88 Zone, and create a national institutional open demonstration zone, the State Council issued the "Comprehensive Docking International High-Standard Economic and w88 Rules to Promote High-level Institutional Opening of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free w88 Zone" (hereinafter referred to as the "Overall Plan"). More than half of the measures involve post-border rules, including promoting the reform of the government procurement system, deepening the reform of state-owned enterprises, increasing the protection of workers' rights and interests, and implementing high-level environmental protection measures.
Not long ago, the Shanghai Municipal Finance Bureau issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting Government Procurement Reform in Pilot Areas in Alignment with International High-Standard Economic and w88 Rules" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), making arrangements for promoting post-border reform in the government procurement field of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free w88 Zone and the Lingang New Area. The "Opinions" put forward 18 specific measures from nine aspects including procurement budget, procurement needs, competition scope, procurement procedures, and information disclosure.
In this regard, some readers asked the editorial board of China Government Procurement News: What is post-border management system reform (hereinafter referred to as post-border reform)? What is the connection with institutional openness? What significance does the overall promotion of border rules and post-border rules have for my country's comprehensive deepening of reform and wider opening-up? What impact will Shanghai's pilot initiative have on my country's government procurement field actively aligning with international high-standard economic and w88 rules? The reporter conducted an interview on this.
The "neighbors" of rules behind the border
When talking about post-border rules, we have to mention border rules. Xu Zhiyuan, deputy director of the Research Department II of the Xi Jinping Research Center for Economic Thought, said that border rules mainly address issues related to the access of foreign investment and foreign goods and services, including tariffs, negative lists for foreign investment access, import licenses, etc. Post-border rules mainly address issues such as protection of legitimate rights and interests, implementation of national treatment and fair participation in competition after foreign investment enters, including property rights protection, fair competition, intellectual property protection, environmental standards, labor protection, policy transparency, anti-corruption, etc.
“In other words, border rules are restrictive management measures set up on the border, such as whether foreign capital can enter and how it can enter the Chinese market. Post-border rules are how the relevant regulatory authorities manage these goods, services, enterprises, and capital elements after they enter the Chinese market.” Tu Xinquan, Dean of the WTO Research Institute of the w88 casino, believes.
As our country’s economy continues to be deeply integrated into the world economic system, the scope of rules involved in opening up to the outside world is also constantly expanding. From the Central Economic Work Conference held in December 2018, which first proposed "promoting the transformation from openness based on the flow of commodities and factors to openness based on the flow of goods and factors to openness based on rules and other institutions", to the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which further proposed "steadily expanding the opening up of rules, regulations, management, standards and other institutional types", and then to the "On Further Comprehensively Deepening Reforms" adopted by the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. "The Decision to Promote Chinese-Style Modernization" emphasizes "steadily expanding institutional openness." The reporter found that post-border rules in government procurement, data, etc. are often accompanied by descriptions of institutional openness.
So, what is the connection between post-border reform and institutional openness? "Actually, post-border reform and institutional opening are the same thing from different angles. First of all, institutional opening corresponds to access-based opening. Access-based opening is market access, that is, border management. Post-border rules correspond to border rules. Therefore, I personally understand that post-border reform and institutional opening are actually the same thing." Tu Xinquan believes.
The significance of coordinating the promotion of border rules and post-border rules
Tang Wenhong, Assistant Minister of Commerce, once stated at the State Council’s regular policy briefing that in recent years, international high-standard economic and w88 rules have continued to evolve and evolve, expanding from border rules such as tariffs and non-tariff barriers to broader post-border rules.
"Based on the innovative results of the free w88 pilot zone system, the "Overall Plan" puts forward higher standards for the reform of the border management system and post-border reform. For example, in terms of goods w88, we will continue to improve the level of w88 facilitation and w88 digitization around the goals of improving international w88 efficiency and reducing international w88 costs." said Hua Yuan, deputy mayor of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government.
According to Tang Wenhong, comprehensively aligning with international high-standard economic and w88 rules in the Shanghai Pilot Free w88 Zone and building a national institutional open demonstration zone are important tasks entrusted by the "Master Plan". It is not only a proactive move to promote reform, development, and innovation through opening up, but also a practical action to provide new opportunities for world development with the new achievements of Chinese-style modernization. It will not only benefit China's own development, but will also benefit the world. Generally speaking, there are three main new breakthroughs and improvements, namely, promoting institutional opening up with a higher level of stress testing, promoting in-depth reforms with greater intensity and pilot trials, and promoting high-quality development with experiments and explorations in a wider range of areas.
"Opening up is a distinctive sign of Chinese modernization. Deeply promoting institutional opening up is the essence of expanding high-level opening up, and it is also an inevitable choice to promote reform and development through opening up. It is also an initiative to demonstrate the image of a responsible big country. Coordinating the promotion of border rules and post-border rules is the key to institutional opening up." Xu Zhiyuan said It is necessary to further relax market access and expand opening up in an orderly manner by optimizing border rules. At the same time, it is necessary to proactively align with international high-standard economic and w88 rules to achieve consistency and compatibility of rules, regulations, management, and standards in property rights protection, industrial subsidies, environmental standards, labor protection, government procurement, e-commerce, and financial fields, so as to avoid problems such as "the big door is open but the small door is not." This is conducive to steadily expanding institutional openness, creating a transparent, stable and predictable institutional environment, and promoting w88 and investment liberalization and facilitation.
What impact will it have on the government procurement field
“Post-border reform is not only about granting national treatment to foreign-funded enterprises, but also about giving fair and equal treatment to all domestic market entities, including state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, etc. This is the more important value of institutional openness.” Tu Xinquan told reporters that even among domestic market entities, fair and equal treatment has not been fully achieved, for example, there are still barriers between different places. He believes that the most important principle in post-border rules is the principle of national treatment.
According to reports, the principle of national treatment in China under WTO rules means that after goods and services enter the domestic market, they should be given the same treatment as domestic goods and services. However, in the past two years, there has been a new change - data. The reason is that data does not have corresponding rules in the WTO. In addition to certain cross-border restrictions on the data itself, there are currently no clear regulations on what kind of management should be implemented after the data comes in. In addition, there are currently different views on the extent of national treatment that foreign companies should be given after entering the Chinese market. According to WTO rules, national treatment for foreign companies is not a mandatory principle, that is, the WTO does not require all member countries to treat all foreign-invested companies exactly the same as domestic companies.
"The field of government procurement naturally involves the previous issues. For example, how to inject the concept of institutional openness into the government procurement system; how to give equal national treatment to foreign-funded enterprises that provide goods, services, data, etc. during the government procurement process." Tu Xinquan believes that post-border reform or institutional opening should be used to create a more open, fair and just business environment.
“Shanghai’s pioneering and pilot measures further highlight the requirements for openness and transparency in the government procurement field.” Xu Zhiyuan said that the “Opinions” actively explored aspects such as optimizing procurement procedures, standardizing procurement behavior, and improving procurement efficiency, and will accumulate useful experience for deepening the reform of my country’s government procurement field and aligning with international high-standard economic and w88 rules. For example, the "Opinions" stipulate that "if there are international standards for the procurement subject matter, purchasers in the pilot areas may adopt the international standards according to the actual situation", and clearly "encourage purchasers in the pilot areas and their entrusted procurement agencies to publish procurement announcements in both Chinese and English", etc., which will help foreign-invested enterprises to participate in government procurement activities in accordance with the law.
Attached is the original link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/JDU_-YTGOx12zK6MdqRdJA.
