Huang Maoxing and Lin Shanming: Advancing the Construction of a Unified National Market in Depth
Advancing the construction of a national unified large market in depth is a major decision and deployment made by the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core from a global and strategic height. The Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (hereinafter referred to as the "Recommendations") made the important deployment to "resolutely break through the sticking points and bottlenecks [1] hindering the construction of a national unified large market." On the new journey, we must persist in combining an effective market with a promising government [2], accurately grasp and resolutely eliminate sticking points and bottlenecks, and advance the construction of a national unified large market in depth. This will enhance China's confidence in calmly responding to risks and challenges and continuously inject strong momentum into promoting high-quality development.
Clearing Bottlenecks
This is an intrinsic requirement for deepening the market-oriented reform of factors of production and building a high-standard market system. "Building a national unified large market, deepening the market-oriented reform of factors, and building a high-standard market system" is a strategic deployment proposed by the 20th CPC National Congress; the three constitute a "reform–market–institution" spiral mechanism. Among them, the essence of the market-oriented reform of factors is to adjust the relations of distribution of productive factors, focusing on the construction and improvement of markets for factors such as land, labor, capital, technology, and data. The degree of their development directly determines the "high-standard" quality of the market system. Constructing a national unified large market takes the breaking down of barriers to factor mobility as its core. By unifying fundamental institutions such as property rights protection, market access, fair competition, and social credit, it provides the necessary spatial carrier and institutional soil for the marketization of factors and the construction of a high-standard market system, while also laying the foundation for building a high-level socialist market economy.
This provides solid support for better cultivating new quality productive forces and focusing on promoting high-quality development. Currently, the domestic market faces sticking points and bottlenecks such as obstacles to factor mobility, inconsistent market rules, and poor interconnection of infrastructure, which have become key bottlenecks restricting high-quality development and the cultivation of new quality productive forces. The construction of a national unified large market is, in essence, a systematic reshaping of those relations of production that do not adapt to the developmental requirements of advanced productive forces. It can release the advantages of an ultra-large-scale market, improve the efficiency of factor resource allocation, and strengthen incentives for fair competition. This helps guide revolutionary breakthroughs in technology, promote the innovative configuration of productive factors, and drive industrial transformation and upgrading, thereby accelerating the cultivation and development of new quality productive forces and promoting high-quality economic development.
This is a key path for accelerating the construction of the new development pattern and stimulating the potential of the ultra-large-scale market. Accelerating the construction of the new development pattern is China’s strategic choice to respond to global changes and grasp the initiative for development. Building a national unified large market can, on the one hand, clear the sticking points and bottlenecks of the domestic Great Circulation [3], promoting the efficient flow of commodities and factor resources, so that all links of production, distribution, circulation, and consumption rely more on the domestic market to achieve a virtuous cycle, fully stimulating the potential of the domestic ultra-large-scale market. On the other hand, it can leverage the attraction and influence of China’s ultra-large-scale market to steadily promote institutional opening up, better align with high-standard international economic and trade rules, and increase China's discourse power [4] in international economic governance. This promotes the linked allocation of both domestic and international markets and resources, better driving the mutual reinforcement of domestic and international dual circulation.
Sticking Points and Bottleneck Factors
Institutional barriers have not yet been fully eliminated, and the problem of inconsistent rules still exists. Institutional barriers are the core obstacles restricting the construction of a national unified large market, primarily manifesting as inconsistent fundamental market institutions and rules, making it difficult to form a unified national institutional environment. Regarding property rights protection, there are still instances in different regions where enforcement and judicial standards for property rights dispute cases are inconsistent, and differences in the strength of property rights protection for different ownership economies persist, affecting the stable expectations of management subjects [5]. Regarding market access, some regions still use hidden thresholds such as qualification certifications and local registration to restrict the entry of outside enterprises. Regarding fair competition, different regions and units have insufficient understanding of the importance of fair competition reviews, and some reviews are merely formalistic. Regarding the social credit system, the sharing of credit information across different regions is insufficient, and regional differences exist in the mechanisms for joint incentives for honesty and joint punishments for dishonesty. These institutional barriers restrict the free flow of factor resources and fair competition.
"Soft connectivity" of market facilities is insufficient and does not match the level of "hard connectivity." In recent years, China’s hardware infrastructure construction in transportation, logistics, and communications has achieved leapfrog development, but the problem of insufficient "soft connectivity" in market rules has become increasingly prominent, failing to match the level of "hard connectivity." In the circulation system, logistics standards are inconsistent across different regions, multimodal transport is poorly connected, and gaps remain in the link between urban and rural logistics distribution systems, with room to further reduce cross-regional logistics costs. In the construction of trading platforms, information sharing among various commodity trading markets and public resource trading platforms is insufficient, functional complementarity is not obvious, and cross-regional transaction coordination is lacking. In the standards system, regional differences exist in areas such as commodity quality, inspection and testing, and certification and accreditation, increasing the compliance costs for enterprises operating across regions. In digital infrastructure, technical standards and data specifications for digital platforms vary by location, and the interconnection of data resources is insufficient, restricting the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy. The lack of "soft connectivity" prevents the effectiveness of "hard connectivity" from being fully realized, affecting the circulation efficiency of the national unified large market.
The regulatory coordination mechanism is not yet sound, and the scale of regulatory enforcement is not sufficiently unified. Regarding regulatory rules, there are gaps in the regulatory systems for certain new business formats and cross-regional operations; regulatory standards differ greatly between regions, and online and offline regulatory rules have not yet been unified, leading to enterprises facing issues such as "multi-headed regulation" and "redundant regulation." In enforcement cooperation, the coordination mechanism for cross-regional and cross-departmental regulatory enforcement is unsound, and mechanisms for sharing enforcement information and mutual recognition of processing results have not been effectively implemented, resulting in low efficiency in investigating and handling cross-regional violations of laws and regulations. Regarding smart regulation, the level of technological regulation varies across regions, and the application of regulatory technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence is insufficient, with the levels of intelligent and precise regulation needing improvement. Insufficient regulatory coordination and inconsistent enforcement scales easily undermine the market environment for fair competition and increase uncertainty for enterprise operations.
Local protectionism and market fragmentation still exist to varying degrees. In recent years, explicit forms of protection—creating "policy troughs" [6] through financial rewards, subsidies, and tax incentives—have been basically eliminated. However, the phenomenon of some localities protecting local enterprises and industries through invisible and mutated means persists. Furthermore, factors such as insufficient local financial resources and imperfect performance evaluation systems for officials have intensified the tendency toward local protectionism, hindering the realization of the advantages of China’s ultra-large-scale market.
Policy Recommendations for Creating Comprehensive Effectiveness
Strengthen Party leadership and resolutely break through local protectionist behavior. We must persist in combining an effective market with a promising government, coordinating between upper and lower levels and between the central and local governments to dismantle local protectionism. First, in top-level design, we should establish and improve a coordination mechanism for the construction of a national unified large market, refine the central-local coordination mechanism, strengthen the sense of the "big picture" [7] among local governments, and summarize and promote the experiences of regional market integration in areas like Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Yangtze River Delta. Second, in the legal system, we should revise and improve the Anti-Monopoly Law and other relevant laws and regulations, research and formulate regulations for the national unified large market, and add penalty and accountability clauses targeting the creation of market barriers by local governments. Third, in the evaluation mechanism, we should improve systems for statistics, fiscal taxation, and official performance evaluation that are conducive to the construction of a unified large market, and strengthen the special review of hidden protectionist clauses in local policies through inspections, audits, and supervisions, comprehensively rectifying "involutionary" competition [8].
Adhere to the combination of "breaking" and "establishing" [9] to unify fundamental market institutions and rules. First, regarding the property rights protection system: continuously improve the institutional system for the equal and long-term protection of property rights of all ownership economies under the law, establish a cross-regional property rights protection cooperation mechanism, improve the punitive damages system for infringements, and strengthen the protection of the entire intellectual property chain. Second, regarding the market access and exit system: clean up and abolish hidden market access thresholds in various localities, strictly implement the "one national list" management model, and establish and improve the exit mechanism for market entities to ensure an orderly entry and exit of market subjects. Third, regarding the fair competition system: strengthen the rigid constraints of the fair competition review system and explore the establishment of independent and professional third-party evaluation mechanisms. Fourth, regarding the social credit system: accelerate the construction of a national credit information sharing platform, promote cross-regional and cross-departmental credit information sharing, and unify credit evaluation standards and application rules.
Strengthen infrastructure support and improve the level of interconnection. We must focus on making up for the shortcomings in "soft connectivity" and promote the simultaneous exertion of "hard" and "soft" connectivity. First, improve the modern circulation network, build integrated comprehensive transportation hubs, and achieve unified standards, interconnected facilities, unified ticketing, mutual trust in security checks, and compatible payments between regions. Second, promote the optimization and upgrading of trading platforms, accelerate the digital and intelligent transformation of commodity markets, establish and improve a national unified public resource trading platform system, and enhance the transaction convenience for management subjects. Third, improve the level of interconnection of digital infrastructure, promote the secure sharing of cross-regional data resources, and construct a smart circulation system.
Unify regulatory enforcement and maintain the order of fair competition. We must innovate regulatory concepts and models and promote unified regulatory rules and efficient enforcement coordination. First, unify regulatory rules, standardizing rules for cross-regional, cross-sector, and online-offline regulation. Second, improve the enforcement coordination mechanism, establishing cross-regional and cross-departmental enforcement cooperation mechanisms. Third, promote technology-empowered regulation, building a national unified market regulation information platform and strengthening technological support for regulation.
Continue to expand opening up, using internal and external linkage to promote market unification. First, continue to do a good job in "opening up to the interior," breaking down regional barriers to opening up, and promoting the equal participation of various market entities in regional cooperation. Actively align with high-standard international economic and trade rules to force the optimization and upgrading of domestic rules [10] and improve the level of domestic market standardization. Second, expand high-level opening up to the outside world, transforming the successful experience of building a domestic unified large market into a supply of international rules, thereby enhancing China’s discourse power and influence in the formulation of global economic rules. Third, strengthen the linkage between domestic and foreign markets, promote the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade, and facilitate the efficient linkage of domestic and international markets and resources. Actively participate in global economic governance and promote the establishment of a more just and reasonable international economic order, creating a favorable external environment for the construction of a national unified large market.