Journalists experience gesture recognition technology during a visit to the Innovation Achievement Exhibition in Zhongguancun National Innovative Demonstration Zone in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 26, 2019. More than 60 journalists from 36 countries and regions on Thursday visited the exhibition. (Xinhua/Liu Chan)

 Beijing is planning to set up a high-level Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) covering technology, the services sector and digital economy, the city's mayor said on Saturday. 

The new FTZ will further open up the services sector and will introduce a negative list for cross-border trade and preferential tax policies to appeal to international capital and talent, Chen Jining, mayor of Beijing said at a conference of the China International Fair for Trade in Services, which is being held in the city.

"The scale and level of service and technology businesses in Beijing is one of a kind, and its FTZ will be different from other zones, like the one in Hainan," Tian Yun, vice director of the Beijing Economic Operation Association told the Global Times, adding that the new FTZ will officially take shape during the 14th Five-Year Plan period between 2020 and 2025.

Beijing city has one of the most robust service industries in the country, accounting for one fifth of the national service industry market. In 2019, 83.5 percent of Beijing's total GDP was generated by the sector. The city began its trial to expand the service industry back in 2015, and from 2015 to 2019, Beijing's services sector received a total of $76.2 billion of foreign capital, with the total foreign trade in services nearing 1.1 trillion yuan. 

"As an example, the city's northwestern Haidian District is one of the most technology-intensive areas in the city, with around 140,000 registered technology companies and 39 unicorns," Tian said, "These companies are often not exporting tangible products, instead they are selling a wide range of business solutions to the rest of the world."

New business models and technology are also pushing the sector to grow even faster. From January to July, imports on Beijing's cross-border e-commerce platforms increased 55 percent year-on-year, and imports of bonded products through e-commerce jumped more than 120-fold. 

According to Tian, instead of simply trying to attract foreign investment or lure more foreign companies, Beijing city will provide an environment that appeals to international talent and encourages companies to offer world-class solutions to their global clients. 

Beijing also has some of the most supportive policies in technology innovation in the country, such as big data and blockchain, Tian said. Earlier in June, Beijing introduced a blueprint for the blockchain industry that aims to establish a blockchain center in Beijing by 2022.

For the FTZ to have and maintain its appeal to top talent and companies in technology, Beijing will also have to ensure strong protection for intellectual property rights and data privacy, Tian said. 

Global Times