Today, the reporter learned from the innovation and development conference held in Qingdao Zone of Shandong Pilot Free Trade Zone that, in the past two years since its inception of operation, the "institutional innovation" in Qingdao Pilot Free Trade Zone has become increasingly prosperous. All 106 pilot tasks assigned by the state have been implemented, and 143 innovation cases have been summarized and one innovation result has been launched in an average of five days.

"Qingdao Zone adheres to 'pioneering' reforms, 'differentiated' innovations, and 'integrated' exploration. The new supervision model of importing crude oil - 'release before inspection' is replicated and promoted throughout the country. A total of 13 pioneering cases were selected as the first batch of 'Best Practice Cases' in Shandong Pilot Free Trade Zone and replicated in the province. Two innovative cases were briefed and published by the Joint Ministerial Meeting of Pilot Free Trade Zone of the State Council. Seventeen reform and innovation practices were approved by the Ministry of Commerce." Speaking of the innovative results, Zhao Shiyu, deputy secretary of Qingdao West Coast New Area Working Committee and director of Qingdao Pilot Free Trade Zone Management Committee, was very familiar.

As the largest area of Shandong Pilot Free Trade Zone and the zone that undertakes the most pilot tasks, Qingdao Zone adheres to the guidance of enterprise need, takes system innovation as the core, takes institutional innovation as the core, and continues to optimize regional business environment by improving the facilitation level in trade, investment, finance, logistics, etc.

Shandong is China's main crude oil import port, and Qingdao Pilot Free Trade Zone has introduced the "release before inspection" model of imported crude oil. After on-site inspection and sampling, the imported crude oil can be unloaded and lifted out of the port's supervision site. On this basis, port companies can also innovate in new forms and new formats of imported crude oil, such as "direct ship-to-ship transfer" and "unloaded and shipped immediately", which greatly reduces the time and cost of customs clearance for crude oil imports.

According to the statistics of Huangdao Customs, since October 1 last year, a total of 256 shipments of imported crude oil, weighing 38.75 million tons, have been supervised by the Customs in the mode of " release before inspection", which has reduced the total inspection and release time by more than 12,000 hours.

The Qingdao Zone-Huangdao Customs-Qingdao Port Joint Research Center is the result of the Qingdao Pilot Free Trade Zone's "Bold Breakthrough and Independent Reform". Since its establishment, the research center has launched 9 innovations to further enhance the level of customs clearance facilitation. Among them, the pioneering mode of "early machine inspection and direct pick-up in the dock" reduces the average time limit of customs clearance by 3-7 hours and saves logistics cost of 600-1,000 yuan per natural container. The implementation of the non-interference supervision mode of inbound empty containers at entry has saved 45 yuan in unloading costs per natural container. The new mode of "direct import pick-up" and "direct export loading" for foreign trade containers has been implemented, and the average loading time at the port of export cargo has been reduced to 0.5 hours.

The "2020-2021 China Pilot Free Trade Zone Institutional Innovation Index" recently released shows that the Qingdao area's institutional innovation index ranks third among the fifth batch of 19 free trade zones nationwide, with trade facilitation ranking first and three indicators, including investment liberalization, financial reform and innovation, and change of government functions, ranking third.

Institutional innovation has promoted high-level opening up and brought about high-quality development. According to statistics, in the first half of this year, the Qingdao Pilot Free Trade Zone completed 88.21 billion yuan of foreign trade imports and exports, an increase of 59.3% year on year, and the growth rates of 19.7, 17.1, and 32.2 percentage points higher than that of the city, the province, and the country, respectively. The actual utilization of foreign investment was 535 million U.S. dollars, with an increase of 127% year on year. The actual utilization of foreign investment per square kilometer was 1.7 times the national average of the free trade zone.