On February 10th, a press conference on the building of the "two zones" in Beijing was held in 2022 Beijing Media Center. Liu Meiying, Member of the Party Leadership Group of Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce and Deputy Director of the Two Zones Office, said that the major goals of building the "two zones" this year have been set: to step up building of the "two zones" and make more noticeable progress through efforts in three aspects, namely, the leading role of institutional innovation, the satisfaction of market entities and the brand recognition of the parks.

Highlight One

Efforts in Three Aspects to Make the Progress in "Two Zones" Building More Noticeable

Liu Meiying said that this year efforts would be made in three aspects to make the progress in the building of the "two zones" more noticeable. Firstly, the leading role of institutional innovation will be enhanced. "We are piloting the benchmarking of international high-level free trade rules in pursuit of building a digital trade demonstration zone and a national innovation demonstration zone of trade in services. By doing all these, we formulate more pioneering and leading policy systems in trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, intellectual property protection, etc. so as to contribute Beijing's experience to China's high-level opening-up".

Secondly, the satisfaction of market entities will be prioritized. Aiming to realize the goals of building the "two zones", which includes the facilitation of investment, trade, talent recruitment and capital flow, and the safe and orderly flow of data, we will roll out targeted action plans on an annual basis with "policy recommendation" as the starting point so as to address the concerns of industries and businesses.

Thirdly, brand recognition of the parks will be improved. Targeted measures for the development of the parks will be fully implemented, which can be summarized as "three batches and four sets": a. to launch a batch of three-year action plans for the park, b. to deepen a batch of institutional reforms, c. to push forward a batch of functional improvement steps, d. to build a set of park service system, e. to perfect a set of investment promotion system, f. to implement a set of image improvement projects so as to build the brand, improve the image of the parks and make the "two zones" known to more people. Meanwhile, based on the characteristics or advantages of the parks, such as venture capital, beauty and health, we will roll out more policy measures to support business incubation, so that industrial clusters or institutional innovation centers will gradually come into shape, epitomizing the achievements of the "two zones".

Highlight Two

Emphasis on Supporting the Development of Beijing Stock Exchange and Derivative Institutions in Beijing

Wang Ying, Deputy Director General of Beijing Local Financial Supervision and Administration, said that in 2021, the added value of Beijing's financial industry reached 760.37 billion yuan, up by 4.5% year-on-year, accounting for 18.9% of the regional GDP, which is close to that of the international financial center cities.

This year, Beijing will prioritize the following six aspects in terms of the financial industry: First, we will provide high-standard services to support national financial authorities and Chinese and foreign financial institutions in Beijing, and further raise Beijing's status as the national financial management center. Second, we will give full support to Beijing Stock Exchange, introduce more derivative institutions and business models and boost their development in Beijing, and optimize a multi-tiered capital market. Third, we will follow through the goals of "two zones" building, which include completing the tasks related to opening-up with a high standard, mapping out a new round of reform policies and promoting the two-way opening of finance.

Besides, we will step up developing experimental zones for green finance and innovation finance in Beijing. Wang Ying said that the pilot program of digital RMB saw progress last year. It has been extended from one station (Daxing Airport Station) to one street (Wangfujing Pedestrian Street) and then to the "Dual Olympic City". Now, this program covers all 400,000-plus Winter Olympics use cases, with a transaction volume of 9.6 billion yuan.

Beijing will redouble our efforts in developing inclusive financing and providing financial services for private and micro and small innovation businesses. While doing all these, we will also guard against risks, especially in key areas, and make sure no systemic financial risks shall arise.

Highlight Three

Implementation of Beijing Action Plan for Opening up the Entire Biomedicine Industrial Chain

Recently, the Beijing Action Plan for Opening up the Entire Biomedicine Industrial Chain (hereinafter referred to as "the Plan") was officially implemented, which is the first action plan for opening up the entire industrial chain in view of building "two zones" in Beijing.

Qu Haopeng, Deputy Director General of Beijing Municipal Medical Products Administration, said that the Plan had put forward 50 specific measures for 17 items from five aspects, covering the whole industrial chain of the biomedicine sector in Beijing from R&D to clinical use.

In terms of market access, product R&D and registration, facilitation measures have been put forward in three areas, namely, the facilitation of market access, international R&D cooperation and customs clearance of R&D equipment, which mainly include that to make it easier for innovative enterprises to carry out international pharmaceutical R&D cooperation, a "white list" system for the import of R&D items of biomedical enterprises and R&D institutions, and "one data base, two stations and three platforms". These steps will give support to Beijing's biomedical R&D institutions to carry out international multicenter clinical trials, R&D and registration of innovative products, and that of innovative medical equipment.

In terms of clinical application, it is proposed to rationally adjust the price management mechanism of innovative medical projects, enrich the supply of commercial health insurance products, establish a green channel to guide medical insurance consultation, and bring more innovative medicines and medical equipment from Beijing into government procurement and promote them, so as to facilitate the application of innovative technologies and products.

In terms of key elements, six measures have been put forward, involving intellectual property protection, talent, capital, benefit sharing, capacity building and fault-tolerant mechanism, with emphasis on establishing intellectual property alliances in the field of medicine and health, supporting the establishment of "offshore bases for biomedical talent", setting up special funds for industry guidance, establishing and improving the benefit sharing mechanism for regional cooperation and development, and establishing and improving the fault-tolerant mechanism for institutional innovation in the pilot free trade zone.

Highlight Four

Introduction of the "Three Catalogues" to Accurately Portrait the Talent Needed

Last year, Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau launched a number of innovative measures represented by the "Three Catalogues" to meet the new requirements of human resources services for the development of the "two zones".

Lu Xiaobo, Second-level Inspector and Spokesperson of Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, said that to promote "two zones" development, 35 professional qualification examinations have been organized for overseas professionals, including examinations of certified public accountants, doctors, patent agents, real estate appraisers and auctioneers, covering fields of finance, construction, planning, transportation, health, intellectual property rights, and information technology. The holding of these exams solves the previous problem that overseas professionals could not take China's vocational qualification examinations even though they were working in Beijing.

The catalogue of overseas vocational qualifications for the "two zones" development solves the problem that the existing qualifications were not recognized. At present, the first batch of 82 overseas professional qualifications, such as certified public accountants, teachers and basketball referees, are included in the catalogue, involving 10 key areas of "two zones" development, such as finance, education, construction and technology services, and medical and health services.

The catalogue of human resources development of the "two zones" accurately depicts the talent needed by Beijing. The catalogue consists of two parts, one about human resources development in key industries and the other about occupations (jobs) in urgent need of skilled talent. The catalogue can provide corresponding guidance for all kinds of employers, workers and human resources service agencies in recruitment and job hunting, education and training, technical skills upgrading, etc. It can also serve as a customized document for the full and orderly flow of human resources and the effective gathering of high-quality talent from home and abroad.

Lu Xiaobo said that Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau will upgrade and improve the "Three Catalogues" in a timely manner according to the needs of the "two zones" development, make efforts to explore more application scenarios, and support more domestic and foreign professionals to come to Beijing for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Highlight Five

The Setting up of Beijing Intellectual Property Protection Sub-centers in the "two zones"

Zhou Liquan, Deputy Director General and Second-level Inspector of Beijing Municipal Intellectual Property Office, said that Beijing has explored the model of setting up intellectual property protection sub-centers. In April last year, the Economic Development Sub-center and Daxing District Sub-center of Beijing Intellectual Property Protection Center were established in the high-end industry section of China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone.

Since opening, the two sub-centers have been active in exploring the professional operation model. Since then, they have provided more than 1,000 patent pre-examination consultations and more than 170 quick consultations on rights protection, held more than 20 sessions of intellectual property-related business training, and offered one-to-one intellectual property services to nearly 40 enterprises.

He said that the setting up of the two sub-centers is one of the concrete measures of the pilot work in the field of intellectual property protection for Beijing's "two zones" development. It is conducive to speeding up the development of the "two zones" as the two sub-centers can help regional advantageous industries that apply for patents obtain rapid examination and confirmation, and improve the core technological competitiveness of innovation enterprises. What's more, it is also beneficial to the integration of both urban and district-level intellectual property resources so that they can be coordinated, letting the one-stop intellectual property dispute resolution mechanism play a more effective role.

"We have laid out a number of intellectual property public service stations in the FTZ, and set up 8 stations in places such as the Cuihu Cloud Center, Sino-Japanese Industrial Park and Sino-German Industrial Park." He said that up to now, there are 17 district-level sub-centers and 84 stations of intellectual property public service in the city. They served more than 1,600 key enterprises, provided 5,370 services, answered 12,543 consultations, organized 554 training sessions and pushed 12,237 pieces of intellectual property policy information throughout the year.

(Reporter: Zhang Lu)