Lin-gang issues policies to support offshore trading

The Lin-gang Special Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone released 24 measures to boost the high-quality development of its offshore trading on Dec 17.

The measures mainly focus on six areas, including giving full play to the role of the special economic functional zone, promoting offshore trading industrial agglomeration and supporting international settlements and convenient finance for offshore trading.

Other areas are improving the ability and level of all-round services, exploring new innovative supervision modes and strengthening comprehensive guarantees.

To encourage more offshore trading industrial agglomeration, the Lin-gang Special Area will give a certain percentage of rewards based on the foreign exchange receipts of offshore trading to the companies that have made great contributions to the area.

In addition, the Shanghai Banking Association signed a cooperation agreement with the Lin-gang Special Area Administration and the Lingang Group. This will provide financial services to the offshore trading sector.

The agreement will enable offshore trading enterprises to manage international settlements and their financial problems, according to Zhang Xiaoyang, director of the division of finance and trade development at the Lin-gang Special Area Administration.

The government will also establish mechanisms and information platforms for different departments to share information and coordinate operations.

The Lin-gang Special Area Administration also signed a cooperation agreement with nine key companies such as new energy giant GCL Group and Swiss global commodities trading company Trafigura on the day.

The area has attracted hundreds of well-known companies worldwide to settle down there and carry out their offshore trading business. In the year to date, the number of companies and the scale of transactions has doubled compared with the previous year.