"Opening-up leads to the path of prosperity," explained Zhang Jian, a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), in an interview with China.org.cn on March 6.

"As we enter a new stage of development, we will follow a new development philosophy and give full play to opening-up to foster a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other," said Zhang, who is also head of the Anhui provincial bureau of commerce.

Over the past year, the size of the open economy of China's eastern Anhui province grew substantially. In 2020, the province's total volume of exports and imports reached $78 billion, an increase of 13.6%, ranking sixth nationwide in terms of economic growth.

From last September when the China (Anhui) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) was officially inaugurated to the end of January this year, over 3,400 new firms have been set up and 362 projects have been signed and established in the zone, with contracted investment reaching nearly 300 billion yuan.

In order to give full play to the role of pilot FTZs in driving a new round of reform and opening-up, Zhang has submitted a proposal to the ongoing fourth session of the 13th NPC on strengthening the coordinated development of the pilot FTZs in the Yangtze River Delta region.

He supports the establishment of a coordinated working mechanism among the FTZs in the region to enable industries to develop in concert and facilitate the flow of factors of production.

"Promoting the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region and enabling FTZs to complement each other with their respective strengths will help foster greater synergy of opening-up," he said.

Speaking of the objectives and tasks Anhui province will take to promote a higher level of opening-up during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), Zhang highlighted further opening-up of markets and industries.

According to Zhang, Anhui will strengthen regional cooperation and serve major national strategies including the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta. Meanwhile, efforts will be made to build the province into a magnet for foreign investment in advanced manufacturing and modern service industries and to pursue the high-quality development of trade.

He added that the province will accelerate the expansion of international markets and support the growth of new forms and models of business such as cross-border e-commerce, market procurement, digital trade and service trade.

"We will work hard to achieve our goals of attracting more than $20 billion in foreign direct investment and reaching over $100 billion in imports and exports by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period," Zhang said.

He added that the province will align its policies with high-level international trade rules, as well as explore new working methods in areas such as the application of scientific and technological achievements, the development of the entire industry chain of advantageous industries, and the opening of the financial sector and new trade models.

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