Hainan's Haikou presents plan for the city's economic development in 2021

 

The Haikou authorities presented development goals and objectives for 2021 as part of the implementation of the fourteenth five-year plan (2021-2025), announced the Mayor of Haikou Ding Hui. 

"This year, Haikou should achieve double-digit GDP growth, it is necessary to promote the attraction of investment in fixed assets, the growth of retail sales of consumer goods, as well as an increase in disposable income per capita in both urban and rural areas," he told www.hinews.cn.

 
According to the official, the city authorities intend to promote the development of the high-tech industry and draw companies from this area to the region. The Haikou government also plans to support the development of an industrial park in Fuxing City, located 17 km from the provincial capital.

According to the mayor, it is planned to increase the inflow of foreign investments by 18% in annual terms, import and export of goods and services — by 15% and 18%, respectively. The authorities will continue to develop and simplify the business climate for companies with foreign capital. According to plan, the number of newly registered enterprises in the city by the end of the year should be twice as high as in 2020.

Ding Hui also pointed out that in 2021, special attention will be paid to improving infrastructure, in particular, in the field of transport and logistics. In addition, Haikou will continue to fight for air quality: over the years, the city has repeatedly become the city with the cleanest air in China. According to official figures, in 2020 Haikou achieved the best indicators for the number of harmful particles in the atmosphere in the last five years.

According to the news outlet, the goals and objectives of Haikou for development in 2021 are in line with the program for the construction of Hainan's free trade port. 

By 2025, the Chinese government intends to create an "international center for tourism and consumption" on Hainan. In order to do so, the "Eastern Hawaii" with their unique natural landscapes, thick rainforests and great climate will establish a developed network of hotels, which blend perfectly with white sandy beaches stretching along the coastline. The combination of an exotic subtropical nature and a modern eco-friendly infrastructure will boost tourist inflow to the island from the most distant parts of the world.

 
In April 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the launch of Hainan's project to build a pilot free trade zone. According to the authorities' plan, the creation of a pilot zone will give impetus to the processes of globalization of the island's economy and increase the attractiveness of the Chinese province for foreign investors. It is expected that by 2050 Hainan will become a unique international cluster with an advanced economic system, which includes a free trade zone, campuses of the best universities, the most modern scientific laboratories and the headquarters of world corporations.

On June 1, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council published the General Development Program for Hainan's Free Trade Port, according to which an effective mechanism to stimulate sustainable and long-term growth should be finally formed in Hainan by 2025. It is expected that thanks to new methods, many of which are being introduced in China for the first time, the province will be able to fulfill a number of key socio-economic tasks necessary to form a powerful financial and economic center in the country’s south. It is assumed that by 2035 both the economic and innovative potential of this region will be maximized, and it will become one of the most attractive places for international investors. 

More than 20 international ships registered at Hainan's Yangpu port

 The number of international vessels registered at Hainan's Yangpu cargo port increased to 22 units in 2020, reported the Hainan Daily newspaper.

 

Their total deadweight amounted to 3.55 million tonnes. Thus, that port has exceeded the plan for the year to register more than 20 vessels on international voyages with a total deadweight of 2 million tonnes.

 

In 2020, despite the coronavirus pandemic, the Yangpu container port experienced positive development dynamics. Ships visited this harbor about 21,000 times last year, which is almost 13% higher year on year. According to the newspaper, there has been a tendency in the port to increase the size of the vehicles it serves. Thus, ships with a tonnage of more than 1 tonne were moored in Yanpu 2,750 times, and ships with a tonnage of more than 3 tonnes - 945 times. These indicators increased by 38% and 46%, respectively, compared to the 2019 data. 

 

The port area of ​​Yangpu in China's Hainan province last year approved 502 applications for registration of representative offices of companies, 90 of them related to shipping. The total number of enterprises registered in this industrial area with a special tax and customs regime has reached 640.

 

Yangpu plays a key role in the development of China's transportation network. According to the plans of the Chinese government, by 2035 this port will become a key point for the distribution of goods traffic from various regions of the country to Southeast Asia and Oceania, Europe and North America. It is expected that by 2025 Yangpu will become a major regional transport hub, through which up to 5 million containers per year will pass annually.

 

New industry catalogue encourages investment in Hainan port

 China issued a catalogue of industries encouraging investment in Hainan Free Trade Port on Friday, giving wider access to outside investors in a number of key areas with a preferential 15 percent corporate income tax rate, according to government officials.

Based on the current National Industrial Catalogue, the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries of Hainan FTP covers 14 more major categories and 143 sub-industries, making Hainan Free Trade Port the area that enjoys the most number of encouraged industries in China.

The Master Plan for the Construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port issued by the central authorities last June stipulated that encouraged enterprises incorporated and de facto operating in Hainan FTP are entitled to a preferential 15 percent corporate income tax rate.

The Circular on Preferential Corporate Income Tax Policy for Hainan Free Trade Port jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration following the release of the master plan, further specified that the term encouraged enterprise refers to a company whose primary business activity is in the Catalog of Encouraged Industries of Hainan FTP and this primary business activity should account for over 60 percent of the company's total revenue.

The Hainan-edition catalogue, effective from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2024, will be dynamically adjusted based on the needs of the construction of Hainan free trade port and will be replaced by a more favorable one by 2025.

The catalogue focuses on tourism, modern services and new and high-tech industries -- the three major industries highlighted in the master plan. For instance, hotels, Hainan-style rural homestays, exhibition services, quality inspection technology services, shipping related financial services and new energy vehicle manufacturing.

Chen Xiaohua, deputy director of the Office of the Commission for Comprehensively Deepening Reform of the CPC Hainan Provincial Committee, said the Hainan FTP catalogue for encouraged industries also provides full consideration to Hainan's characteristics industries such as tropical agriculture, marine resources development and will encourage investment in intensive processing of tropical agricultural and forestry products, desalination of sea sand, research and development and manufacturing of marine renewable energy equipment.

Experts said release of the industry catalogue for Hainan FTP sends clear new signals of the country's unswerving push for further opening-up and facilitating free trade and investment.

Hainan Education Innovation Island draws global media attention

 The above picture shows an overview of Yazhou Bay Sci-Tech City in Sanya, the location of Yazhou Bay Science and Education City, which brings together many universities. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Guangyu)

 

Xinhua News Agency integrated the resources of their global news agency alliance to explain the latest trends and prospects of Hainan Free Trade Port development of the Hainan International Education Innovation Island to audiences worldwide in multiple languages such as English, Japanese, Korean, and Russian, triggering wide media attention across the globe.

 

Screenshots of the news articles published by CBS, Chicago Daily Herald.com, Yahoo, and MarketWatch.

 

According to preliminary statistics, the news article “Hainan Free Trade Port Becoming an Attractive Destination for Opening-up and Cooperation in International Education” has been republished by more than 170 overseas mainstream media and industry media organizations such as  L'Agence France-Presse, CBS, Daily Herald, Kyodo, Mainichi Shinbun, The Asahi Shinbun, Yonhap News Agency, Malaysian National News Agency, Antara News Agency, TASS Russian News Agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur , MarketWatch, NAVER, Excite, and Infoseek. The total number of views exceeded 110 million, effectively enhancing the global visibility and influence of the International Education Innovation Island.

 

Screenshots of the news articles published by Malaysian National News Agency, Antara News Agency, NNN News Agency, and Seeking Alpha.

 

 

The article mentions that according to the Education Department of Hainan Province, with the island’s opening-up in the area of international education, 36 well-known colleges, including Fachhochschule Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, Coventry University, and the University of Alberta, have made cooperative agreements to set up campuses in Hainan. They will be mainly located in the Li'an International Education Innovation Pilot Zone in Lingshui and Yazhou Bay Sci-Tech City in Sanya.

 

 

"With a large number of high-quality education resources, Sanya will embrace top talents in related fields," said Tong Liyan, Full-time Deputy Party Secretary of the Yazhou Bay Sci-Tech City Administration.

 

 

In the past two years, a total of 400 education projects were under construction in Hainan, with a total investment of about 4,600 million USD. Due to COVID-19, since the end of the last year, some parents who planned to send their children abroad to study have decided to instead take a closer look at China's study-abroad policies and job information in Hainan.

China's Hainan establishes flights with 62 cities in 20 countries

 China's Hainan is stepping up international air traffic, which has already been established with 62 cities in 20 countries, according to the official account of Hainan's free trade port on WeChat messenger.

 

In 2019, the authorities set the task of creating a four-hour and eight-hour economic aviation zones. The first provides for the establishment of air links with 21 Asian countries in the region, where up to 47% of the world's population lives. The eight-hour economic zone should include 59 countries in Oceania, Africa and Europe.

 

The report indicates that there is currently a significant increase in the number of air routes and airlines operating in the province. Hainan's airports serve passenger flights on 400 domestic destinations, as well as eight cargo air routes. As for direct international flights, at the moment they amount to 103.

 

As the implementation of the free trade port project accelerates, the authorities are stepping up efforts to create an aviation hub covering the Pacific and Indian Ocean, the publication specifies. By 2025, the goal has been set to increase the total passenger traffic of airports operating in the province to at least 70 million people.

Great start to Hainan yacht charter market in 2021

 The Hainan yacht charter market got off to a great start in 2021. According to the Department of Transport of Hainan Province, during the Spring Festival holiday, Hainan yachts were booked 5,460 times, and 38,882 people enjoyed yacht trips in the province. Compared with 2019, these numbers jumped by 47.97% and 14.18%, respectively.

 

In recent years, Hainan has vigorously promoted the development of the yacht industry. Aiming at building an International Tourism Consumer Center, Hainan is accelerating the opening of Hainan's yacht industry, fostering new consumer growth areas, improving the province’s service quality & internationalization, and striving to make Hainan an international yacht tourism destination.

 

To this end, Hainan has simplified yacht entry procedures, created a port management system of “fixed docking location & nearby integrated inspections”, and implemented rapid supervision measures to guarantee free yacht travel between Hainan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

 

In 2019, the Department of Transport of Hainan Province eased the controls on yacht tourism, established a legal environment for yacht industry development & tourism, provided investment guidance, and regularized the development of the yacht industry.

Financial support benefits the development of the Hainan FTP

 According to the Haikou Central Sub-branch of the People’s Bank of China, in 2020, Hainan’s social financing scale was 97 billion yuan, up 1.6 billion yuan from the previous year. In terms of the composition of the social financing scale, the major drivers of the increase were loans and securities financing of financial institutions. In 2020, Hainan’s local governmental securities increased by 39.9 billion yuan, comprising 41.1% of Hainan’s social financing scale, and accounting for the increase in the social financing scale compared with the same period of the previous year. 

In terms of deposits and loans, Hainan’s balance of loans in Chinese and foreign currencies reached 998.2 billion yuan, up 46.1 billion yuan compared with the beginning of 2020 and up 4.8% year-on-year, which was also 1.3% higher than Hainan’s economic growth in 2020. Hainan’s balance of deposits in Chinese and foreign currencies reached 1.0312 trillion yuan, up 5.9% year-on-year. The province's deposits and loans also increased steadily.

The function of the Hainan Free Trade Port Account (FT Account) is continuing to improve, and its business scale is also clearly increasing. At present, 10 commercial banks have provided FT Account financial services.In 2020, 7,235 master-accounts and 21,648 accounts were opened, and capital receipts and payments reached 31.33 billion yuan, up 130% year on year. High-end customers increased from 43 at the end of 2019 to 103 at the end of 2020, up 139% year on year.

Driven by the favorable policies of the Hainan Free Trade Port, Hainan has implemented many measures in service and trade, improving cross-border trade facilitation and implementing cross-border direct investment & cross-border financing facilitation measures, and more.

For example, Hainan has implemented a pilot program to register foreign exchange directly with banks for overseas listings, and carried out pilot QFLP (Qualified Foreign Limited Partner) reform. In 2020, two QFLP funds were opened in Hainan with a total capital of 99.95 million US dollars. Preventing risks in cross-border capital flow is one of the most important missions for the finance industry in support of the development of the Hainan Free Trade Port. Hainan has established the first fund transfer information monitoring system in China, and in 2020, the system monitored about 5 million fund transfers arriving in and departing from Hainan Island daily, totaling around 30 billion yuan.