A view of the financial center of Shanghai's Pudong New Area. WANG GANG/FOR CHINA DAILY

　　The recently passed provisions to promote the development of free trade (FT) accounts at Shanghai's Pudong New Area not only address the rising demand for innovative financial services, but also serve as another major attempt regarding the country's two-way opening-up, said experts.

　　As China's first local regulation specially promulgated for FT account businesses, the new provisions were passed on March 27, two months after it started to solicit public opinion, and will take effect on May 1.

　　Touching upon multinational companies' capital pool business, loans provided for overseas entities' mergers and even retail businesses under the FT account, the new provisions have demonstrated to both Chinese and foreign companies the direction of China's future financial opening-up, said Cao Xiao, head of School of Finance at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

　　As explained by Lu Hua, professor from the School of Economics at Fudan University, innovative supply chain finance services are now in high demand. This is especially true among biopharmaceutical companies and cross-border e-commerce platforms, as they need resources from both home and abroad. The FT account can address such demand by exploring more application scenarios, she said.

　　The FT account mechanism was first experimented in Shanghai in 2014. As of end 2024, about 170,000 such accounts had been opened in the city. Over the past decade, the average annual growth rate of cross-border receipts and payments in domestic and foreign currencies made via the accounts exceeded 30 percent, while that for cross-border receipts and payments handled by non-resident enterprises approached 40 percent.