New Measures for Institutional Innovation Accelerate Economic and Trade Cooperation
The SCODA has made breakthroughs in institutional innovation. This afternoon, the press conference on the institutional innovation of the SCODA was held at Qingdao China-SCO Countries Cooperation Hub. During the press conference, the first batch of 10 cases of institutional innovation of the SCODA was published, and the 2021 action plan for institutional innovation was also published.
It was introduced that the first batch of 10 cases of institutional innovation included 3 cases of cross-border transportation facilitation, 2 cases of trade facilitation, 1 case of two-way investment facilitation, 1 case of people-to-people exchanges facilitation, 1 case of the application of scientific and technological cooperation results, 1 case of financial innovation, and 1 case of optimizing and improving the business environment, covering all aspects of the building of 4+1 centers.
"We took into consideration the characteristics of SCO countries, benchmarked against high-standard international rules such as CPTPP, RCEP, and promoted the building of institutional innovation system with SCO characteristics," Meng Qingsheng, Deputy Director-General of the Administrative Committee of the SCODA said, "the first batch of 10 cases of institutional innovation published this time comes from our work practice, strictly selected and compiled, and represents the latest achievements of the SCODA's efforts to facilitate SCO local economic and trade cooperation through institutional innovation. These institutional innovations feature leading innovation, breakthrough innovation and original innovation and thus are very good examples."
Taking the example of building "Eurasian freight train + TIR" Japan and South Korea land-sea express dispatch center, and building an international multimodal transport comprehensive port, by building "Eurasian freight train + TIR" Japan and South Korea land-sea express assembly center, we are able to exchange containers at the port, without redundant stevedoring, thus realizing the flexible door-to-door service, and effectively streamlining the customs clearance procedures for goods. The direct international road route from Qingdao to Uzbekistan takes only 7 days, whose transport time is one-fifth of sea transport, half of the railway transport, and the cost is only one-tenth of air transport, greatly facilitating the cross-border transport and trade among SCO countries.
Yin Chen, Secretary-General of Shanghai Free Trade Zone Comprehensive Research Institute of Fudan University believes, "The first batch of 10 cases in institutional innovation demonstrates the SCODA's brave exploration in institutional innovation on the basis of central tasks, and embodies the characteristics of "three matches". The first is matching high-level international rules, the second is matching serving major national strategy, and the third is matching the real demand of market entities."
During the press conference, the 2021 Action Plan for Institutional Innovation of the SCODA was also published. This year the SCODA will issue 30 measures of institutional innovation, covering 7 aspects of modern logistics, modern trade, two-way investment, talent exchange, financial service, scientific and technological cooperation, and business environment.
It's reported that, in order to promote institutional innovation by high standards, the SCODA is making every effort to build the brand of institutional innovation—"smart SCO innovation". According to Meng Qingsheng, "smart" represents learning from the advanced regions, companies and market entities their experiences in innovation, and drawing on the wisdom of experts and think tanks. "Innovation" means to give full play to the initiative of the administrative committee and market entities to innovate and create, on the basis of learning. "SCO" means to consider the uniqueness of SCO, focus on the bottleneck hindering SCO economic and trade cooperation, and highlight SCO elements.