Hong Kong should pay attention to the mainland’s construction of a unified national market | Blog Post

The election of Hong Kong’s chief executive has begun, and the mainland has also become political and social news in both places due to the outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai. On Sunday night, there was a major news release in the mainland, which did not attract everyone’s attention, but it was a very important measure for China’s future development. This “Opinion” deserves in-depth study and is also important for the future positioning of Hong Kong.

This “opinion” of more than 7,000 words, in a simple sentence, proposes that the country will build a unified national market from the construction of basic systems and market facilities. A unified large market refers to the basic system rules for building a market across the country, and a unified commodity and service market at a high level. At the same time, market supervision should also be fair and unified, and further regulate unfair market competition and market intervention.

When the official media announced the “Opinions”, Guo Liyan, director of the Comprehensive Situation Research Office of the China Academy of Macroeconomics, was quoted as pointing out that there are two reasons for the establishment of a unified national market: one is to comprehensively consolidate the results of the smooth circulation of the domestic economic system; It provides a good support for China to resist external uncertainties with its own maximum certainty. As it can be seen, the central government is building this unified big market, on the one hand, it is to comprehensively improve the quantity and quality of China’s market, and on the other hand, it is also a bottom-line thinking in order to cope with various challenges to China from the international environment. Now that China is the world’s largest consumer market, if the quality and quantity of this huge market are further greatly improved, amazing potential can be unleashed.

Why this document is called “heavyweight”? Xinhua News Agency quoted the person in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission to interpret the document, considering the macro perspective of world economic development and China’s right to speak in the global economy. “Under the support of the concept of “going towards a “strong market”, we have hit hard.

The “Opinions” established a point: in today’s world, the most scarce resource is the market. That is to say, following China becomes the world’s factory, it will become a major consumer country in the world, and then become a consumption power, and this strength will not only include consumption power, but also high-tech, production efficiency, residents’ income, and so on.

The person in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission believes that it has five significances for promoting high-quality development and building a new development pattern:

First, accelerating the construction of a unified national market is the basic support for building a new development pattern. Second, accelerating the construction of a unified national market is an inherent requirement for building a high-level socialist market economic system. Third, speeding up the construction of a national unified market is a realistic need to achieve technological self-reliance and promote industrial upgrading. Fourth, accelerating the construction of a unified national market is an important basis for participating in international competition. Fifth, accelerating the construction of a large national unified market is an important measure to release market potential, stimulate development momentum, and promote stable economic operation.

Here I will focus on the fourth point of international competition. The central government is determined to create a unified large market, which will not only help promote better connectivity between the domestic market and the international market, but also form a strong gravitational field for advanced global resource elements and improve China’s role in the international economy. The right to speak in governance and gain new advantages in international competition and cooperation.

The Russian-Ukrainian war and the sanctions imposed by the United States and the West on Russia caused almost all multinational companies to withdraw from the Russian market overnight. Thinking from another perspective, if China is also faced with the same situation (of course I am convinced that China will not take special military action once morest any country), will those multinational companies in China withdraw without thinking? Tesla’s revenue in China reached US$13.84 billion last year, a year-on-year increase of 107.8%, while the US market revenue was US$23.973 billion. China is the second largest market following the US, and China’s revenue accounted for the company’s revenue. 25.7%, will Tesla just walk away?

The Chinese market must not only be big enough, but also strong enough. Only the strong can take up a larger share of the business of multinational giants, which invisibly increases China’s right to speak. It can be summed up like this:

First, it is necessary to break through layers of barriers in China. Through the strict implementation of the “one national list” management model, prominent problems such as improper intervention and hidden barriers in key areas and key links have been resolved, and unreasonable barriers between regions, provinces, cities, and even localities have been broken.

Second, from an international point of view, China is not a closed country. On the contrary, it wants to promote the integration of domestic and foreign market rules and standards, which will help the domestic unified large market to become a powerful “core”.

Third, it is not a one-size-fits-all, not uniform, but on the premise of maintaining a unified national market, combined with the implementation of major regional strategies and regional coordinated development strategies, giving priority to the construction of regional market integration, of which the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is the One of the regions that prioritizes regional market integration.

For the future government, how to understand the national “market integration” and effectively integrate into the Greater Bay Area is also a major issue.

Li Tong

Postscript: Lu Yongxiong asked for a month’s leave, and Li Tong temporarily wrote it.