Island's free trade port helping attract pharma firms from around the world

Hainan province is positioning itself as a premier destination for the global health and wellness sector, with senior officials and business leaders pledging stronger international cooperation, during a major forum held in Haikou on Tuesday.

The "Dialogue on Hainan Free Trade Port: A New Global Vision for Health" brought together more than 170 enterprises from 19 countries and regions, including 80 foreign life-health companies and 105 senior executives from global giants such as Siemens, Pfizer and Novo Nordisk.

Feng Fei, Party secretary of Hainan, said the island province is becoming a new frontier of China's opening-up, a hotbed for mutually beneficial cooperation and a new engine for economic globalization.

"The life and health industry is a key pillar of Hainan Free Trade Port," Feng said, highlighting Hainan's unique advantages — its excellent ecological environment, open industrial policies and vast market potential.

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He extended a warm welcome to foreign pharmaceutical companies, research institutions and investors to share in the FTP's opportunities and help build a world-class life-health industry cluster.

The island-wide special customs operations kicked off in Hainan on Dec 18, which Feng described as a landmark move in China's commitment to building an open world economy.

Xi Guohua, chairman of CITIC Group, called Hainan Free Trade Port the highest-level form of China's opening-up.

"The full implementation of Hainan's policies presents historic opportunities for the bio-health industry to integrate into global industrial chains," Xi said.

He added that CITIC will leverage its strengths as a multinational conglomerate to serve as a bridge between China and the world, deepening cooperation with Hainan in biomedicine, high-end medical care and wellness services.

CITIC has provided a financing support package exceeding 39 billion yuan ($5.7 billion) to facilitate win-win cooperation during his trip, Xi said.

Peter Burnett, chief executive of the China-Britain Business Council, said "Hainan is not just a free-trade zone — it's a free trade port, the only one in China. That means the whole island is included, with very low tax rates and zero tariffs policies. I expect to see investment, growth and prosperity in Hainan."

"For the United Kingdom, 80 percent of our economic output is in services. Many companies in our delegation to Hainan this time are in services — not just financial services, but also engineering, publications, media, and creative industries," Burnett added.

Li Tao, vice-president of Siemens Healthineers Greater China, said Hainan has unique characteristics and a leading edge, not just policy priority.

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"We are also exploring how some of our medical equipment can be initially applied in Hainan for trial use, and then promoted to partner countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative," Li said.

Michael Heilig, from Germany's federal association for small and medium-sized enterprises, said, "Through this trip, we see that Hainan is not only a tourism destination, but also a very international economic and innovation hub."

"German SMEs are often called hidden champions. The policy we learned about today — 30 percent value-added processing in Hainan allowing tariff-free access to China's mainland — is particularly innovative and appealing. Given Hainan's strategic location, it can connect to the huge Chinese mainland market as well as the broader Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asia. This will be very important for German SMEs as they restructure their supply chains under the current economic situation," Heilig said.

Contact the writers at masi@chinadaily.com.cn