Research On The Transformation Of Qingdao Free Trade Zone Into A Free Trade Port

In recent years,with the deepening of regional economic integration,inter-regional free trade has become a major driving force for global economic development.Over the past decade,China has actively followed the general trend of regional economic integration and continued to expand its free trade pilot zones.In his report to the 20th Party Congress,General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly put forward the strategic ideas of "insisting on deepening reform and opening up" and "implementing the strategy of upgrading the pilot free trade zones and expanding the network of high-standard free trade zones for the whole world",which have provided a clear direction and target for promoting a high level of opening up to the outside world in the new era.This has set out the direction,objectives and requirements for the promotion of high-level opening-up in the new era.Since the official establishment of China’s first pilot free trade zones in 2013,China has established 21 pilot free trade zones.Qingdao FTZ was established in August 2019,but due to its unclear positioning of its own development and the fact that it has not formulated its development policies in line with its own situation,it has failed to highlight its own development advantages in the development process and its development potential has not been fully released.This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the development status of the Qingdao Free Trade Zone(QFTZ)in four aspects:foreign trade,foreign investment utilisation,industrial development and institutional innovation.The study finds that the limitations of the current development of Qingdao FTZ mainly lie in two aspects,namely the slow development of offshore market economy and the high restrictions on market access.Based on the current development situation and limitations of Qingdao FTZ,this paper analyses the necessity and feasibility of transforming and upgrading Qingdao FTZ.In order to better integrate with national strategies,build an international shipping hub in Northeast Asia and develop a high-quality maritime economy,Qingdao FTZ needs to transform into a free trade port;the advantages of port conditions,transportation network and hinterland economy possessed by Qingdao FTZ itself provide feasibility for its transformation.On this basis,this paper applies the fuzzy hierarchical comprehensive evaluation method to demonstrate in detail the current development levels of different influencing factors and arrive at the overall evaluation value of the transformation potential of Qingdao FTZ to a free trade port.Taking into account the limitations in the development of Qingdao FTZ and the evaluation results derived from the modelling,targeted policy recommendations are proposed for its transformation into a free trade port.These include expanding financial market operations,improving the preferential taxation system,benchmarking with the high standard negative list requirements,improving the rules for the movement of natural persons and building an efficient management system.The Qingdao Free Trade Zone has been developing steadily since its establishment in 2013,but its own development potential has not been fully unleashed.A study on the transformation of the Qingdao FTZ into a free trade port can provide targeted recommendations for its transformation and upgrading into a free trade port,which will enable it to unleash its full potential.Therefore,the study of the transformation of Qingdao FTZ into a free trade port is important for its further high-quality development,high-level opening and the implementation of the free trade pilot zone upgrading strategy.