China's cabinet has announced that certain preferential policies currently available in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone are going to be expanded nationwide.
The state council has issued a circular, saying most of the country will be allowed to adopt 22 measures on investment, foreign trade, finance, service and government supervision by the end of June.
Six of the existing customs measures in the Shanghai FTA are going to be expanded to more than 100 "customs special supervision areas" across China at the same time.
For more on the move, earlier I talked to Liu Baocheng, professor of Marketing with the University of International Business and Economics.
Questions:
1. What is the rationale behind the move? And how feasible will be a nationwide expansion?
2. What sort of difficulties will local governments have in trying to implement the policies?
3. How much interest will there be in foreign companies trying to take advantage of the loosened restrictions?
