(Bloomberg) -- China is pressing local officials to deliver on plans to build a unified national market, issuing guidelines for improving competition and dismantling barriers to access as Beijing looks to expand domestic demand.
The document, published on Tuesday by the National Development Reform and Commission — China’s top economic planner — aims to provide a “working direction and basic reference” for local governments to implement the initiative that’s been in the works for years.
The push aims to remove policies that hinder fair competition and worsen overcapacity. The effort has gained new urgency as China looks to rev up consumption to offset the impact of rising trade tensions weeks before Donald Trump takes office.
The latest blueprint includes a vow to break local protectionism and sets out requirements on a broad range of issues, from safeguarding property rights and fair competition to the rules governing transportation and telecommunication networks, land trading and product standards.
All rules for local market access will be unified in China’s so-called national negative list, according to the document, a move that would override any other restrictions hindering the entry of investors into certain sectors.
“We will push for regions to find their path to integrating in the unified national market,” Wang Shancheng, a senior NDRC official, said at a briefing devoted to the guidelines. “The guidelines put forward specific requirements and targets on what actions are required, banned, or encouraged.”
The unified national market will be “fully open to the world and treat all market entities equally,” he added.
The initiative also intends to develop closer connections between transportation networks in different regions to further bring down logistics costs. Among other goals are reining in excessive local government charges on businesses and unifying various local standards on data trading and product quality, as well as administrative law enforcement.
‘Consolidate and Strengthen’
“China has entered a period where strategic opportunities and risks and challenges co-exist and uncertainties and unpredictable factors increase,” Wang said. The building of a unified national market will “consolidate and strengthen our competition advantages and help create and guide demand with high-quality supply,” he said.
China’s top leaders have made boosting domestic demand, particularly consumer spending, a priority to bolster economic growth this year as they brace for the looming threat of US tariffs to the country’s exports.
Bilateral relations are set for more turbulence when Trump is sworn into office later this month, adding to challenges faced by the Chinese economy that’s been reeling from deflation and a years-long property slump.
The authorities will introduce code of conduct rules about market supervision, as part of efforts to crack down on excessive fees on businesses, Wang said at the briefing. They will attempt to overhaul a system that gives officials discretionary power to impose administrative penalties, he added.
Residency restrictions that shut workers out of joining the social security system in the cities where they work will be removed fully, according to the guidelines.
Wang also said at the briefing that reforms to the currently fragmented housing provident fund and medical insurance management will be deepened to improve people’s well-being, allowing them to pay in one region and withdraw or settle payments from another.
“Fully taking advantage of China’s super large market will solidly back our efforts to pool resources, encourage innovation, upgrade industry and promote growth,” Wang said. “It will provide enormous confidence for us to deal with the changing situation and break new ground.”
(Updates with more details.)
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