It has been a year since the Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone was included into the Shanghai free trade zone (FTZ) in the Pudong New District, so Pudong decided to do a survey of Lujiazui's enterprises to get their response to the FTZ's financial policies, Pudong Times reported.

The survey covered 573 enterprises in construction, wholesale and retail sales, finance, and other sectors.

The survey found the three most popular policies to be preferential taxation, free trade account that allows freer capital movement between the FTZ and offshore destinations, and capital account reforms such as improved yuan convertibility and interest rate liberalization. Other policies deal with simplifying foreign exchange and cross-border settlements, mostly favored by the catering and commercial industries, and cross-border RMB cash-pooling, adopted by the finance sector and foreign-funded companies.

Most importantly, the results have shown that 88 percent of the enterprises feel confident about the FTZ and think that it has brought them new development opportunities, such as increased markets, more flexible and effective fundraising channels, and reduced operating costs.

However, the enterprises say they expect the authorities to simplify foreign exchange procedures to make them more beneficial to their overseas business operations.

Source: China daily.com