President visits Xiamen Free Trade Zone

Today, President Dr. Mohammed Muizzu visited the Xiamen Free Trade Zone, where he and the First Lady were presented with an introductory video and given a tour around the zone, where they were able to inquire about the significant areas within the zone.

The Xiamen Free Trade Zone is one of 21 free trade zones in China, which each specialise in different sectors and, geographically, are spread out. Alongside the foreign investment law, these zones form part of Chinese economic liberalisation policies.

The benefits of the free trade zones are the good business environment for foreign companies which removes barriers in doing business and creates tax incentives for duty-free imports and exports, along with fewer restrictions on capital movement, which includes the ability to open free trade accounts for multi-currency international payment services and free capital exchange, and movement which provides cross border financial services.

In addition to this, there’s the availability of strong human capital with the ability to attract talented foreign and domestic human capital. Measures for this include subsidies, tax exemptions and partnerships with universities. Moreover, there are also strong location economies, which is the consolidation of both human capital and infrastructure, and a high level of supporting services and resources, which creates a cyclical reinforcing effect with the reputation of each free trade zone.

The Xiamen Free Trade Zone (FTZ) itself has a total area of 43 km² and is located in the port city of Xiamen in East China’s Fujian province. The goal of the Xiamen FTZ is to introduce new initiatives for trade, which have become standard practice for other FTZs across China. The Xiamen FTZ has developed new ways to protect intellectual property rights to encourage greater foreign investment.

The area has also worked to become a one-stop aviation maintenance region and has launched an effort to cooperate with countries along the Maritime Silk Road and opened the first European railway express, starting from a free trade zone in China. The free trade zone is also looking to boost cross-border e-commerce, financial leasing and aviation maintenance through the growth of technology.

This visit marks an important shift in the Maldivian economic relationship with China as the President makes it a point of importance to create ties with the various unique industrial areas within the country.