Fact Check
A unified national market to build faster
By Lan Xinzhen  ·  2025-01-20  ·   Source: NO.4 JANUARY 23, 2025

While a highly mobile working population has been the norm in China for decades, gaps have persisted in workers' access to social security when they're working away from home. Gaps also remain in what have become the world's most powerful industrial and supply chains, meaning those workers may not find their favorite products on the shelves of every city. Problems like these are diminishing, but remain as obstacles to tackle as the Central Government works to build a unified national market.

To break down the barriers between markets in different regions, promote the free flow of resources on a national scale and stimulate market vitality and social creativity, the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planner, issued guidelines for building a unified national market on January 7. The guidelines include more than 50 detailed measures. For instance, the guidelines abolish the restrictions on access to social security for those working away from their home region and also prohibit local governments from setting up regional barriers to market access for businesses.

The Central Government introduced a policy to build a unified national market in April 2022, with the aim of accelerating the building of a new economic development pattern with the domestic market as the mainstay and with the domestic and international markets supporting one another. This is a strategic plan with a view to long-term economic development and aims to achieve higher quality development that is more efficient, fairer, more sustainable and more secure. Building a unified national market is an important foundation on which to build this domestic circulation.

Breaking down regional market barriers and administrative separation enables the free flow and efficient allocation of goods and resources on a national scale. Building a unified national market requires the establishment of a basic unified system and rules, as well as strengthening regulation and oversight. Doing so will create a market environment conducive to fair competition, conducive to the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of market players and conducive to promoting the improvement of the socialist market economy.

A unified market offers businesses a larger space for development and also more and better regulated competition, encouraging them to invest more in research and development to accelerate product development and technological upgrading. A unified market will also help businesses avoid unnecessary costs during sourcing, production and distribution.

Local governments eliminating protectionist practices will have positive impacts on local economic growth. Due to the huge differences in economic development between China's regions, a unified national market will facilitate resource sharing and mutual complementarity between regions, attract more production factors to underdeveloped regions, promote industrial transfer and coordinated development, and narrow the regional gaps.

Global economic integration pushes countries to become more efficient and competitive in what they produce. Accelerating the building of a unified national market will reorganize domestic resources to form synergies, creating a stronger market that can better participate in international division of labor and cooperation, improve China's position in the global economy, and increase its competitiveness in the international market. In addition, as instability increases in the world economy, a unified and strong domestic market will enhance the internal forces driving the development and resilience of the Chinese economy, reducing its over-dependence on external markets and effectively resisting external risks.

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

Comments to lanxinzhen@cicgamericas.com 

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