BEIJING, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- East China's Shanghai unveiled the first negative list in the service trade field in the country for its free trade zone (FTZ) on Tuesday in an effort to continuously deepen reform and expand its opening-up.
Of the 159 special management measures in the negative list, there are 31 items involving the financial sector, covering the aspects of monetary and financial services, capital market services, insurance and other financial services.
Among them, Shanghai FTZ will liberalize the market access restrictions of bank card clearing institutions and non-bank payment institutions, relax the restrictions on financial rating services of foreign financial service companies, and support more foreign investors and intermediaries to participate in Shanghai's futures market transactions.
It further demonstrates Shanghai's clearing attitude of deepening and expanding the opening-up of its financial industry through the construction of the FTZ. It is an important measure to optimize the financial development environment, said Li Jun, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Financial Service Office.
Meanwhile, Shanghai also released the implementation measures of negative list management model for the cross-border service trade in the FTZ, the first local government document governing the service trade based on the negative list mode in the country.
Shanghai will work with relevant departments to increase research on the opening-up and innovation of the tourism services, education services, telecommunications services, professional services, etc., as well as the field of professional qualification of some professional and technical personnel, and strive for a higher degree of openness in the service trade in the FTZ, said Wu Qing, vice mayor of Shanghai.
As a pilot city for innovative development of the service trade in the country, Shanghai has always taken the lead in the development of the service trade.
According to statistics of the Shanghai Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, Shanghai achieved a total trade volume of 195.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, ranking first in the country, accounting for 29.1 percent of its foreign trade. (Edited by Hu Pingchao, hupingchao@xinhua.org)
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