NDRC to step up push for building national unified market

China’s accelerated push for building a national unified market will create broader development space for all players, including foreign businesses, signaling a key step to deepen market-oriented reforms and foster high-quality development, officials and experts said.

The National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic regulator, said in a statement on Wednesday that China aims to build a unified and fully open market, offering a better environment and larger development space for domestic and foreign businesses.

The remarks came after the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council jointly released a guideline on April 10 on accelerating the establishment of a national unified market, aimed at ending local protectionism and unifying the fragmented market to remove key hurdles to economic growth.

The NDRC said establishing a unified and well-regulated market will give full play to its decisive role in allocating resources and help transform the government’s functions.

According to the NDRC, building a national unified market will provide strong support for China to create a new economic development pattern of “dual-circulation” that takes the domestic market as the mainstay while domestic and foreign markets complement each other.

To build such an open national market, the State Administration for Market Regulation said that it will mainly focus on fields related to market access, fair competition, supervision on credit and intellectual property protection to accelerate the establishment of rules in a unified market system.

Liu Ruiming, a professor at Renmin University of China’s National Academy of Development and Strategy, said that a national unified market does not mean seclusion under the internal circulation model, but instead emphasizes integrating the Chinese economy internationally and further opening up the economy.

Liu Quanhong, director of the International Economics Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, said that building a national unified market will give full play to the advantages of China’s ultra-large domestic market, accelerate the building of a highstandard system and expand highlevel opening-up.

Citing the increasing downward pressure on the economy, Liu said accelerating the building of a unified national market will also help relax market access for both domestic and foreign businesses, adding that it is essential for China to fully unleash market potential, strengthen market vitality, further boost market confidence and promote economic stability.