Zhejiang government authorities roll out 23 measures to make trade and investment more convenient in the China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone. [Photo/WeChat account: china-zjftz]

Zhejiang authorities recently rolled out 23 measures to make trade and investment more convenient in the China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone, local media reported on March 31.

These measures involve cross-border renminbi, financing channels, credit loan support, foreign exchange management, and financial services.

According to the measures, the Hangzhou, Ningbo and Zhoushan areas of the Zhejiang FTZ will receive support to pilot the facilitation of cross-border RMB settlements involving oil products. Banks in these areas will also receive support in offering cross-border e-commerce traders cross-border RMB settlement service.

The Zhejiang FTZ will be supported in issuing more bonds to private companies by securitization of tangible assets, including ports and infrastructure, and cross-border financing.

The Hangzhou central branch of the People's Bank of China (PBOC) revealed that it would allocate policy funds from PBOC to support Zhejiang FTZ's companies engaged in bulk commodity, digital economy and cross-border e-commerce.

The branch also encouraged major companies in the FTZ to confirm their ownership and right to use of real estate via the accounts receivable financing service platform.

Lu Weifeng, vice-president of PBOC's Hangzhou central branch, said that the Zhejiang FTZ has achieved significant results in cross-border RMB settlement and foreign exchange reform.

Since the Zhejiang FTZ started operations in 2017, its cross-border RMB settlement has grown 15 times to more than 300 billion yuan ($45.76 billion). It has also helped over 800 companies gain nearly $6 billion in overseas financing, noted Lu.

He added that the time used for documents review in Zhejiang FTZ has been reduced from one to two days to 20 minutes.