Hainan free trade port offers new opportunities for world: Boao Forum officials

(ECNS) -- Hainan free trade port marks a further step in China's opening up, which will bring new opportunities to Asia and the world, and it holds great promise in sectors of services trade and green development, experts said on Tuesday during the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2025 in Boao, south China's Hainan Province.

Ban Ki-moon, chairman of Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) and 8th secretary general of the United Nations, stated that in the past seven years, he had witnessed how Hainan had transformed and reinvented itself at a panel discussion themed "Global Free Trade Port Development" during the BFA. 

Evolving from infrastructure and tropical agriculture to high-tech industries, Hainan is transforming into a magnet for attracting global talent, capital, and resources, as well as a tourism, shipping, logistics and financial center, Ban noted.

The province is expected to make greater contributions to the promotion of free trade and inclusive globalization, he said.

Hainan free trade port should capitalize on its potential comparative advantages by introducing a negative list for access and regulation of high-end service industries to create a new highland for China's service industry to open up to the outside world, said Zhou Xiaochuan, vice chairman of the BFA and China's chief representative to the forum.

Additionally, Zhou pointed out that Hainan free trade port has unique advantages in ecological resources and has already made some achievements in green development. "I believe there is still a wide space for green development in the future," he said.

(By Zhang Dongfang)