After more than six years since the establishment of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, over 100 institutional innovations have been launched, including "negative list" and "pre-establishment national treatment ", which have greatly helped boost productivity.

This aerial photo taken on Sept. 21, 2016 shows the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone in Shanghai, east China. Sept. 29 will mark the 3rd founding anniversary of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone. (Xinhua/Pei Xin)

Taking one of the institutional innovations for reference, in the past in order to open a convenience store enterprises, one must obtain at least five permits, including those on food safety, tobacco monopoly, medical equipment sales and so on, after obtaining a business license.

"After the introduction of the policy, i.e. 'integrating multiple approval items involved in an industry access into a comprehensive industry license', it is only necessary to apply for a comprehensive industry license to open a convenience store in Pudong district of Shanghai. The time required to apply for the license has been reduced from 95 working days to five working days," said a representative applying for the license from a convenience store named Suning.

Through a series of reforms and innovations of government mechanism, the vitality of market entities in Shanghai Free Trade Zone has been stimulated. 

Data shows as of March this year, a total of 64,000 new enterprises had been established in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, with the number of newly established enterprises in the past six years 1.8 times that of the same region in the previous 20 years.

Meanwhile, 12,000 new foreign-funded enterprises have been established, accounting for about 20 percent of the total, up from 5 percent from the number at the beginning of the listing of the free trade zone.