China's push to build national unified market signals a key step to deepen market-oriented reforms

On October 27, 2021, a view of the Qinzhou port in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. PHOTO XINHUA China's accelerated push to build a national unified market will create a wider development space for all players, including foreign businesses, signaling a key step to deepen market-oriented reforms and foster high-quality development, officials and experts said.

The National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic regulator, said in a statement on Wednesday that China aims to build a unified and fully open market, offering a better environment and larger development space for domestic and foreign businesses.

The communist party of China Central Committee and the State Council released a guideline on April 10 on accelerating the establishment of a national unified market, aimed at ending local protectionism and unifying the market to remove key obstacles to economic growth.

The NDRC said that the market will give full play to its role in allocating resources and helping to transform the government's functions.

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The NDRC believes that building a national unified market will provide strong support for China to create a new economic development pattern of dual-circulation that takes the domestic market as the mainstay while domestic and foreign markets complement each other.

In order to build an open national market, the State Administration for Market Regulation said that it will focus on fields such as market access, fair competition, supervision on credit and intellectual property protection, as well as the establishment of rules in a unified market system.

Liu Ruiming, a professor at Renmin University of China's National Academy of Development and Strategy, said that a national unified market does not mean seclusion under the internal circulation model, but instead emphasizes integrating the Chinese economy internationally and opening up the economy.

Liu Quanhong, director of the International Economics Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, said that building a national unified market will give full access to the advantages of China's ultra-large domestic market, build a high-level opening-up and expand high-level opening-up.

Liu said he believes that it is essential for China to fully unleash market potential, strengthen market vitality, and promote economic stability due to the increasing downward pressure on the economy.