In the five years since its establishment, the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone has spread a number of good "seeds" such as institutional innovation, market vitality and regulatory system breakthroughs in the "test field", which has produced fruitful reforms that can be replicated and promoted.

Since 2013, the zone has actively explored an investment management system with a core of pre-establishment national treatment with a negative list, and established a trade supervision system that meets the high standard trade facilitation rules.

It has tested a comprehensive regulatory system that focuses on credit supervision and information sharing, which has greatly narrowed the gap with international rules.

The special management measures for foreign investment access (negative list) in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone decreased from 190 items in 2013 to 45 items in 2018.

The free trade zone has created 25 percent of the city's GDP and 40 percent of the city's total volume of foreign trade imports and exports.

Shanghai E-Home Entertainment Development Co was awarded the foreign investment filing enterprise certificate of "Shanghai Free Trade Zone No 001".

After five years, the company, which started from scratch, has developed rapidly and is accelerating the introduction of high-quality games from overseas and bringing Chinese original quality games to the international market.

"If not listed on the list, companies can do things boldly. It increased the transparency and predictability of the policy," said Zhu Ying, senior operations manager of E-Home.

In October this year, the country's first negative list of service trade was released in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. The list contained 159 special management measures involving 13 categories and 31 industries.

Li Jun, director of the Institute of International Service Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the negative list of service trade mainly addresses cross-border delivery, overseas consumption, and the movement of natural persons. It will provide a better environment for the development of China's service trade.

In the future, the Shanghai Free Trade Zone will give full play to the role of demonstration and leadership, further handle the relationship between the government and the market, and assume the heavy responsibility of "seeding machines" on a larger and perhaps national scale.

Pedestrians walk past the entrance of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone. [Photo by Wu Jun/For China Daily] 

Skyscrapers dominate the skyline of Pudong New Area in Shanghai. [Photo by Gao Erqiang/China Daily]