Liu Tao: Improving the Market Access System to Support a High-Level Socialist Market Economy System
The market access system is a fundamental institution that centrally reflects the relationship between the government and the market. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee proposed to "perfect the market access system and optimize the market access environment for new business forms and fields," identifying this as a reform task for constructing a high-level socialist market economy system. In August 2024, the "Opinions on Perfecting the Market Access System," issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, made specialized deployments, providing a program of action and a work guide for further ensuring equal opportunities for all types of business entities, stimulating market vitality, and promoting the construction of a high-level socialist market economy system.
The market access system is a vital foundational institution of the market economy
Foundational institutions of the market economy refer to a series of rules and standards established to ensure the effective operation of market mechanisms. Among these, the market access system is a vital foundational institution.
From the perspective of the inherent requirements of market economic development, market access is the starting point for various business entities to carry out production and operation activities and participate in market competition. Consequently, institutional arrangements regarding market access conditions and procedures become important foundational systems of the market economy.
From the experience of mature market economy countries, the market access system aims to ensure that all types of business entities enjoy equal opportunities to enter the market. Generally speaking, the broader the fields and scope of market access, and the higher the transparency and standardization of access conditions, the greater the freedom of choice for business entities. This leads to more effective prices formed through competition between supply and demand, smoother flow of goods and factors, and a fuller realization of the role of market mechanisms.
From the practice of more than 40 years of China's reform and opening up, perfecting market access as a foundational market economy institution performs an important supporting role in upholding and perfecting the basic economic system, in which public ownership remains the mainstay while diverse forms of ownership develop together. We must fully ensure that willing and capable business entities can enter the market without barriers—particularly by opening up competitive segments of natural monopoly industries, increasing market openness, and breaking down access barriers irregularly established by local governments to achieve a "single national list" [1] for market access. Only by doing so can we form a market structure of effective competition, expand the supply of goods and services, better uphold and implement the "Two Unwaveringlys" [2], promote the complementary advantages and common development of various ownership economies, more fully manifest the advantages of our country's basic socialist economic system, and continuously liberate and develop the productive forces.
Perfecting the market access system is of great significance for constructing a high-level socialist market economy system
Drawing its vision from the promotion of Chinese-path modernization, the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee emphasized that a high-level socialist market economy system is an important guarantee for Chinese-path modernization and proposed to "perfect the market access system." This is a new and higher requirement put forward by the Party Central Committee for the construction of the market access system, following the proposal of "implementing a unified market access system" at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee and the "comprehensive implementation of the market access negative list system" at the 19th CPC National Congress. It is of great practical significance.
Perfecting the market access system is a key move to promote a better combination of an effective market and a capable government. In developing a socialist market economy, the key lies in properly handling the relationship between the government and the market. To construct a high-level socialist market economy system, we must give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation and better play the role of the government, ensuring that we both "let it function flexibly" and "maintain effective control." Perfecting the market access system and scientifically determining market access rules—using a "subtraction" of administrative power to achieve a "multiplication" of market vitality—is a concrete manifestation of "letting it function flexibly." This helps provide greater space for the market to play its decisive role in allocating resources, while clearly defining the functional boundaries of the government, reducing improper government intervention in the market, and shifting more administrative resources toward strengthening mid-stream and downstream supervision [3], so that the market remains both full of vitality and standardized and orderly.
Perfecting the market access system is an inevitable requirement for providing a favorable institutional environment for the development of new quality productive forces. Developing new quality productive forces is an inherent requirement and an important focus for promoting high-quality development, and it necessitates further comprehensively deepening reform. Currently, a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is developing in depth, with new business forms and models constantly emerging. Compared to business entities, the government does not possess informational advantages or flexible responsiveness. Perfecting the market access system, especially optimizing the market access environment in new business forms and fields, is conducive to stimulating the endogenous drive and innovative vitality of the whole society, optimizing the allocation of production factors, and promoting the clustering of various advanced production factors toward the development of new quality productive forces.
Perfecting the market access system is a realistic need for constructing an institutional system that interfaces with international common rules. Currently, China's economy has been deeply integrated into the world economy, with a high degree of industrial correlation and interdependence with many countries globally; the domestic and international demand markets are themselves interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Perfecting the market access system and strengthening the synergy between domestic and foreign investment access policies—promoting the compatibility of rules, regulations, management, and standards—will help leverage China's advantage as an ultra-large-scale market. This will attract global resource factors through the domestic cycle [4], improve the quality and level of trade and investment cooperation, create favorable conditions for accelerating the construction of the new development pattern, and win the strategic initiative in increasingly fierce international competition.
Constructing a market access system that is open, transparent, standardized, orderly, competitive on equal terms, clear in rights and responsibilities, and robust in supervision
In accordance with the objective requirements of being "open and transparent, standardized and orderly, competing on equal terms, clear in rights and responsibilities, and robust in supervision," we must perfect the market access system to provide solid support for the construction of a high-level socialist market economy system.
"Open and transparent" requires the implementation of a market access system that is unified nationwide and coordinated between domestic and foreign investment, as well as the perfection of relevant information disclosure mechanisms. To perfect the market access negative list management model, we must not only achieve a single unified national list but also strengthen the coordination of policy adjustments for domestic and foreign investment. Market access management measures set by laws, administrative regulations, and local regulations, as well as temporary measures set by provincial-level government regulations in accordance with the law, shall all be included in the national unified market access negative list. All various catalogs of access lists, industrial policies, investment policies, environmental policies, and territorial spatial planning involving market access compiled at the national level shall be incorporated into the market access negative list management. Where access restrictions are lifted for foreign investment, they shall be simultaneously lifted for domestic investment; provided that international agreements and commitments are not violated, where access thresholds are set for domestic investment, they shall simultaneously apply to foreign investment. Furthermore, perfecting the market access system requires strengthening information disclosure. The contents of the items on the market access negative list shall be fully disclosed to the public; for licensed access items, local governments at all levels must disclose the legal and regulatory basis, technical standards, permit requirements, handling procedures, and time limits; promote the online disclosure and handling of intermediary service items related to market access; and ensure that the process of assessing market access effectiveness is open and transparent.
"Standardized and orderly" requires the formulation of market access management measures in accordance with the law and the orderly relaxation of access restrictions in the service industry. This necessitates formulating market prohibition measures or permit access management methods in accordance with the law in fields where market access management is implemented. We should open up access in fields of full competition and significantly reduce access restrictions on business entities. For service industries that do not involve national security or social stability and where supply quality can be improved through full market competition, access restrictions should be gradually abolished. For industries such as education, health, and sports that involve important aspects of people's livelihoods, access restrictions should be relaxed steadily, and access standards for industries like elderly care, childcare, and disability assistance should be optimized. Unreasonable service industry access restrictions on business entities must be cleared away. Requirements for service industry business entities regarding qualifications, equity ratios, registered capital, personnel, business premises, and scope of business should be relaxed. Management of market access in new business forms and fields should not mechanically apply traditional management models focused on administrative approval; instead, it should give full play to market mechanisms. Following the principles and pathways of "standard-led, scenario-opening, market-driven, industrial-clustering, and system-upgrading," the market access environment should be optimized by field to improve access efficiency and better promote the development of new quality productive forces.
"Equal competition" requires ensuring that all types of business entities can enter fields outside the list on an equal basis in accordance with the law. On the basis of implementing the market access negative list system, it is strictly forbidden to irregularly establish access permits, add access conditions, or independently formulate negative lists of a market-access nature outside the unified list. It is also forbidden to irregularly set access barriers during the implementation of franchising, designated operations, or testing and certification.
"Clear in rights and responsibilities" requires clarifying the procedures for adjusting market access management measures. Before a market access management measure is added or adjusted, the relevant industry departments should, following the principle of "the one who formulates is the one responsible," independently conduct assessments of its necessity, safety, and effectiveness. After passing the assessment, they should follow legal procedures to propose the formulation or revision of laws, regulations, or rules. In cases where the sudden major risk to economic operation might occur, temporary market access management measures may be taken upon approval.
"Robust supervision" requires the establishment of a comprehensive supervision system adapted to the relaxation of market access. Supervise the scope of monopolistic and competitive business activities carried out by enterprises in natural monopoly segments to prevent relevant enterprises from using their monopoly advantages to extend into upstream or downstream competitive segments or to exclude or restrict competition in those segments. Strengthen access supervision in the financial industry. Enhance the capacity and level of comprehensive market supervision, and promote the formation of a pattern characterized by government supervision, corporate self-discipline, industry self-regulation, and social oversight.
(The author is the Deputy Director and Research Fellow of the Market Economy Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council) Source: Qiushi, January 15, 2025 Web Editor: Huihui