Abstract

The Annual Report on Commercial Development of Henan（2018） is compiled by Henan Commerce Economics Institute under the supervision of Henan Provincial Commerce Department. It comprehensively summarizes the development results of Henan commerce in 2017, researches and analyzes the theoretical and practical issues of commerce, and scientifically studies and predicts the trend of commercial development of Henan Province in 2018. It is quite a systematic, comprehensive and timely report.

The whole book is composed of five parts: Main Reports, Industry Topics, Special Topics, Case Studies and Regional Topics.

The main reports include the annual main report on commercial development of Henan and the main report of China（Henan）Pilot Free Trade Zone, which demonstrate the basic viewpoints of the book.

One of the main reports entitled Analysis and Outlook on Commercial Development of Henan Province from 2017 to 2018 comprehensively summarizes the general situation of the commercial operation of Henan in the year 2017, analyzes and predicts its trend of development in 2018. The report reckons that faced with complex economic situations in 2017, the whole commercial system of Henan province have systematically implemented the spirit of a series of important addresses by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of CPC Central Committee. Under the solid leadership of the CPC Henan Committee and Henan Provincial Government, we proactively adapted ourselves to the new normal of economic development, stayed committed to making progress while keeping stable performance, rose to challenges, and forged ahead and broke new ground. Our measures focused on deepening reform and open-up, enhancing circulation, boosting consumption, strengthening oversight and benefiting the people. The commercial development of Henan Province has achieved new development, new breakthroughs and is standing at new starting point, providing strong support for the socio-economic development. In 2017, the actual inflow of foreign investment reached USD 17.22 billion, a year-on-year increase of 1.4%. The actual inflow of investment from other provinces in China reached RMB 910.68 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.9%. The total import and export of goods reached RMB 523.28 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.9%. The total retail sales of consumer goods registered RMB 1.96668 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 11.6%. The accomplished turnover of overseas contracted projects and labor cooperation reached USD 4.77 billion, a year-on-year drop by 9.4%. The contractual investment of Chinese companies overseas stood at USD 1.76 billion, a decline of 59.5%, marking the return to rational external investment. In 2018, the commercial development of Henan is faced with opportunities and challenges, difficulties and hopes. We must accurately grasp the changes in situations, continue to be guided by the thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era of Xi Jinping, and continue to seek progress while maintaining stable performance. Efforts should be made to grasp new concepts and ideas on opening-up and development and meet new requirements of high quality development. We should make our priority the development of the pilot free trade zone and the cross-border E-commerce comprehensive pilot area, and coordinate innovative development in open investment attraction, foreign trade, circulation of domestic trade, external cooperation, E-commerce and supervision and enforcement. We shall pick up speed in developing open inland highland and building a strong province in terms of economy and trade. Efforts should be made to promote quality revolution, efficiency upgrade and driver replacement of commercial development, making new contributions to the quality economic growth of our province in the new era.

The second main report is entitled Accelerating System Innovation to Promote the Constrution of China（Henan）Pilot Free Trade Zone with High Standard. It mainly describes the rapid development in the key areas including completing institutional framework, improving supporting policies, performing the tasks of trial, intensifying the replication and popularization of good practice, strengthening staff training and heightening publicity and promotion since the establishment of China（Henan）Pilot Free Trade Zone. As a result, China（Henan）Pilot Free Trade Zone gets off to a good start and achieves visible effects. The government of China（Henan）Pilot Tree Trade Zone is expediting the transformation of its functions and improving the levels of investment liberalization and trade facilitation. The advantages of comprehensive transport and logistics hub are highlighted, and ability of the financial industry to serve business entities is increasingly improving. The legal service system is increasingly improving too, the level of opening-up keeps rising, and a batch of outcome cases comes into existence rapidly. The report reckons that as for the next step, the China（Henan）Pilot Free Trade Zone will implement the spirit of the 19thCPC National Congress, adhere to the strategic positioning of the country, and focus on institutional innovations. We should make it our basic requirement that the practice we advocate must be replicable and easy to popularize. We should make risk prevention and control our bottom line, benchmark our practice against internationally advanced rules, and strengthen the system integration of reform measures. We shall make greater effort to fulfill the three major tasks and build five service systems to perform five major reforms. Greater effort should be made to implement the trial reform tasks of the general plan, build an international rule-based and convenient business environment, force the pace in building a modern 3-dimensional transport system, a modern logistical system and a modern comprehensive transport hub that serves the“Belt ＆Road”initiative. With these systems, we should drive the concentrated development of industries and attain more institutional innovation achievements to further highlight the role of China（Henan）Pilot Free Trade Zone as the test field for comprehensively deepening reform and broadening opening-up so that we can live up to our exemplary and ministrant role in the nation.

The volume of Industry Topics has mainly analyzed the development of all commercial industries of Henan in 2017, especially the new highlights and new changes in development of important industries. It has researched and discussed about the industrial development and forecasted the trends of all commercial industries of 2018 in combination with the overseas and domestic economic situations. It has also put forward development ideas, countermeasures and suggestions.

The volume of Special Topics has analyzed the emphasis, difficulties and hot points concerning creating new ways for investment promotion, improving effectiveness of investment promotion, promoting the reform and development of domestic trade distribution system, management mechanism of oil product market, situation and trend of international trade friction of Henan in 2017, transformation of cold chain logistics, in-depth opening up to both domestic and overseas areas for building Zhengzhou into a national central city and training of foreign aid and put forward suitable measures.

The volume of Case Studies has mainly demonstrated the examples in the history of Henan's commercial development, e. g. the innovation and transformation of Dazhang Group, endogenous upgrading and transformation of Aeolus Tyre, E-commerce development of Steelcn and efforts made to reform and optimize innovative services in National Luohe Economic and Technological Development Zone to improve quality and efficiency and promote its development. This volume has also discussed about the important enlightenment from these cases on commercial development.

The volume of Regional Topics has comprehensively reflected the achievements of all regions of Henan in commercial work in 2017, analyzed problems in commercial work and targeted measures with obvious regional characteristics, and demonstrated the new ideas and new advantages of regional commercial development of Henan.

Keywords: Henan Province; Commercial Development; China（Henan）Pilot Free Trade Zone; Opening up