On April 17, the State Council Office held a press conference on foreign exchange revenue and expenditure data for the first quarter of 2020. Foreign exchange bureau spokesman, chief economist, and director of the Department of International Payments Wang Chunying said that the foreign exchange bureau provided multiple supports for epidemic prevention and control and corporate resumption of production, including the opening of a "green channel" in foreign exchange business and the launch of 12 cross-border trade Investment facilitation measures, and 8 facilitation measures to simplify the foreign exchange business process.
At the press conference, a reporter asked questions. Due to the impact of the epidemic, China's foreign-related enterprises have been hit hard. What are the relevant policies issued by the foreign exchange bureau in support of the resumption of production and especially small and medium enterprises? What is the effect now?
Wang Chunying introduced that the foreign exchange bureau provides strong support for epidemic prevention and control and the resumption of production of enterprises, mainly reflected in the following aspects:
First, open a "green channel" in foreign exchange business to support epidemic prevention and control and corporate resumption of production. For example, the business process of import foreign exchange payment and export foreign exchange collection related to epidemic prevention materials has been further simplified, and financing business related to epidemic prevention and control has been further facilitated. At the same time, for enterprises that really need it, they can cancel the borrowing of foreign debt limits and can apply for foreign debt registration online. To ensure that individuals and enterprises normally use their foreign exchange needs, and encourage foreign exchange transactions online. Support and guide the China Foreign Exchange Trading Center and the Shanghai Clearing House to reduce or exempt the fees for foreign exchange transactions and clearing in Hubei. From the effect point of view, from January 27 to March 31, the proportion of online foreign debt processing nationwide reached 93%, compared with 61% in 2019.
Second, continuously deepen the reform and opening up in the foreign exchange field and raise the level of cross-border trade and investment facilitation. In October 2019, the Foreign Exchange Bureau launched 12 cross-border trade and investment facilitation measures; in March 2020, the macro-prudential adjustment parameters for full-caliber cross-border financing were raised to expand the space for enterprises to borrow foreign debt, so that enterprises can have more room to come Utilize overseas funds; on April 14, 8 more facilitation measures were introduced to simplify the foreign exchange business process.
Wang Chunying pointed out that overall, these facilitation measures have three focus points. The first is to increase the support for stabilizing foreign trade, mainly including expanding the pilot of foreign exchange revenue and expenditure facilitation of trade, facilitating cross-border e-commerce foreign exchange settlement, and optimizing the reporting method of foreign exchange business in goods trade. The second is to focus on improving the level of cross-border financing facilitation, including promoting the reform of capital project income payment facilitation nationwide; expanding the pilot of foreign debt facilitation to support cross-border financing of high-tech enterprises; and reforming the registration and management of corporate external debt. The third is to improve the service level of foreign exchange business, mainly including facilitating the use of electronic documents in foreign exchange business. From the actual effect, these measures can significantly save the time cost and labor cost of enterprises, such as the pilot of foreign exchange receipts and payments facilitation in trade, and save more than 50% of the time cost of related enterprises.
Third, actively use technical means such as cross-border financial blockchain service platform to facilitate small and medium-sized enterprises to carry out trade financing. As of April 7, the cross-border financial blockchain service platform has accumulatively completed 22.7 billion US dollars in accounts receivable financing, served nearly 3,000 entrepreneurs, and accounted for more than 75% of SMEs.
Wang Chunying said that in the next step, the SAFE will further sort out the facilitation measures that can be introduced to support enterprises to resume production and production, as well as to carry out cross-border trade investment and financing activities.
