Shanghai's free trade zone should further enhance policy coordination and lawmaking to address enterprises' actual needs, experts said ahead of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone's three-year anniversary.
"Numerous reform measures have been introduced in the past three years in various areas, but a lack of coordination between different departments has led to fragmentation and hindered reform efforts," Zhou Guoping, deputy director of the city government's Development Research Center, said at a seminar organized by East China Normal University yesterday.
Xu Mingqi, secretary-general of the Shanghai Research and Coordination Center for FTZ studies, suggested that red tape and policy conflicts at different levels among the various authorities should be addressed to give full play to service opening-up policies, which is important for Shanghai to steer its economy toward being service oriented.
For example, FTZ policies approved by the State Council, China's Cabinet, allow foreign investors to set up wholly foreign-owned health care units in the zone, while regulations released by the country's health authority forbid foreign doctors to engage in clinical diagnosis and treatment in China for more than one year.
Experts advised regulators of customs, business administration, taxation, finance, social security and transportation to work together in building an integrated and dynamic information sharing platform.
