Beijing is among the first group of cities in China to launch pilot programs to expand opening up in such sectors as value-added telecommunications and healthcare. It also hosts the country’s first foreign-funded enterprise specializing in human genetic diagnosis and gene therapy. Additionally, the city has released the nation’s first scenario-based and field-level negative list for outbound data flow of companies in the pilot free trade zone, introduced China’s first Catalogue of Recognized International Professional Qualifications and established the country’s first pilot zone for the special provision of rare disease drugs.
On February 26, a press conference on advancing institutional opening up in Beijing’s financial sector under the “two zones” initiative was held. According to the press conference since the launch of the “two zones” initiative, Beijing has implemented over 140 breakthrough policies, more than 70 of which are pioneering at the national level and over 70 institutional innovation achievements have been replicated across the country. For three consecutive years, Beijing has ranked first in the overall evaluation of pilot and demonstration areas for greater openness in the service sector nationwide.
In June 2023, the State Council issued a number of measures to support qualified pilot free trade zones (ports), such as the China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone, to take the lead in promoting institutional opening up aligned with high-standard international rules. In November 2023, the State Council approved the Work Plan to Support Beijing in Pursuing the Initiative for the National Integrated Demonstration Zone for Greater Openness in the Service Sector (2.0 Plan), with 40% of the measures aligned with high-standard international economic and trade rules. In January 2025, five national authorities, including the People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of Commerce, jointly issued a guideline on supporting the Beijing Pilot Free Trade Zone and other free trade zones to pioneer efforts in promoting institutional opening up in the financial sector in alignment with international high standards.
Guo Wenjie, Member of Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director General of the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau, introduced that all districts and relevant departments in the city have taken the initiative to conduct pilot programs and reforms. In just over a year, 152 projects under the 2.0 plan for the integrated demonstration zone were completed, with an implementation rate exceeding 86%. The first batch of projects for the pilot free trade zone to promote institutional opening up in alignment with international high standards was fully implemented, giving full play to the role of this comprehensive experimental platform for reform and opening up.
While actively rolling out a series of pioneering policies, Beijing has also promoted systematic and integrated innovations. In the field of scientific and technological innovation, the Beijing Zhongguancun Comprehensive Bonded Zone, the country’s first one featuring R&D and innovation, has commenced operation. It creatively replaced physical fencing with an intelligent supervision system. Regarding the digital economy, a pilot area for basic data policies was created in line with high standards, covering five areas including E-Town. In terms of green finance, the city has supported the China Beijing Green Exchange in establishing a national trading platform for China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER), and launched a pilot project for standardized ESG data evaluation services in the financial sector, the first of its kind in China.
In the field of biomedicine, Beijing was among the first in the country to launch pilot projects to optimize the clinical review and approval of innovative drugs, along with the approval procedures of supplementary drug applications. It adjusted the green channel for the import approval of drugs and medical devices for urgent clinical needs from a sequential evaluation procedure to a parallel one. Since 2024, a total of 10 drugs for urgent clinical needs have been approved for import, exceeding the combined number of approvals in 2022 and 2023. It also issued a work plan to promote drug exports and explored an “import upon approval” mechanism for innovative drugs in designated medical institutions, driving the development of new quality productive forces through institutional innovation.
According to Guo, Beijing has implemented a series of measures to support businesses. Its trade facilitation measures include: cooperating with members of the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement to launch the country’s first whole-process, distributed trade digitization pilot with real transactions; adopting the inspection and supervision model of “qualification guarantee and conformity verification” under which “customs clearance can be completed in a few minutes” for imported mechanical and electrical equipment; and taking the lead in implementing the system of extending the validity of advance ruling upon application, significantly reducing the customs clearance costs for enterprises. Additionally, the city has steadily boosted investment facilitation by taking the following steps: adopting the Regulation of Beijing Municipality on Foreign Investment; launching the “Global Service Partners Program”, with 13 enterprises recognized as the first batch of “Global Service Partners”, improving the round-table meeting mechanism for foreign-funded enterprises and the “closed-loop” demand response mechanism, and holding hundreds of round-table meetings.
Beijing has made steady progress in strengthening legal safeguards. To build the city into an international commercial arbitration center, Beijing has conducted in-depth research and evaluation of the Regulations on the Construction of the Beijing International Commercial Arbitration Center, resulting in a high-quality draft that was submitted to the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress for the first deliberation in accordance with the procedures. It has conducted China’s first arbitration where the arbitration tribunal made a decision on interim measures and the court ruled for preservation and ensured enforcement. In addition, the first representative office of an overseas arbitration institution was established in Beijing, continuously boosting businesses’ sense of gain.
Driven by institutional innovation and service quality enhancement, landmark businesses such as Beijing BNP Paribas Tianxing Property Insurance Co., Ltd. and Pramerica Insurance Asset Management Co., Ltd. have settled in Beijing. Sanofi launched its Beijing-based biopharmaceutical active pharmaceutical ingredients project, marking the company’s largest single investment in China and the first of its kind by a multinational pharmaceutical company in the country. Eight well-known foreign-funded pharmaceutical enterprises, including Eli Lilly and Pfizer, stepped up their investment in the capital. In 2024, a total of 2,012 foreign-funded enterprises were established in Beijing, representing a year-on-year increase of 16.4%, 6.5 percentage points higher than the national average.
