Zheng Haiao, deputy director of the Policy Research Bureau at the \r\nManagement Committee of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, \r\ndescribed his job as something like a "woodpecker".

By working out measures for reform and innovation, Zheng said he and \r\nhis colleagues manage to "peck off" the institutional barriers that \r\nmight affect international market players in the pilot FTZ, in order to \r\nmake their business development more "simplified, efficient and free".

Speaking at a dialogue in Shanghai on June 16 evening on the city's\r\n achievements in practicing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese\r\n Characteristics for a New Era, he discussed the development of the FTZ \r\nsince it was founded in 2013.

Zheng spoke of the work to reduce the number of items on the zone's \r\n"negative list". Industries not on the list are open for investment to \r\nall businesses and do not require prior approval by the authorities.

Over the past eight years, the number of the items on the negative \r\nlist was reduced from more than 190 to only 30 in order to keep widening\r\n market access for foreign businesses, and more than 12,000 foreign \r\ncompanies had set up operations in the FTZ, he added.

He said that China will continue to open wider through consistent \r\nreforms, and Shanghai will definitely become a magnet for international \r\ninvestors.

Shanghai has been the frontier and barometer of China's reform and \r\nopening-up since the country's opening-up policy was launched in 1978.

In August 2019, the Chinese government announced the establishment of\r\n the Lingang Special Area of the Shanghai FTZ, a major strategic move to\r\n further opening-up, facilitate overseas investment and capital flows \r\nand realize the free flow of goods.

President Xi Jinping has said on many occasions that China is \r\ncommitted to all-around opening-up to the world. During an inspection \r\ntour of Shanghai in November 2019, he called for bolder moves to conduct\r\n a higher-level opening-up in broader fields in the Lingang area of the \r\nFTZ.

Addressing the meeting on June 16, which was organized by the \r\nInternational Department of the Communist Party of China Central \r\nCommittee and the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee, Li Qiang, Shanghai's\r\n Party secretary, said it is through deepening reform and opening-up \r\nthat Shanghai has become what it is today and created many miracles.

Going forward, Li said the city will further develop itself with \r\nbolder moves, keep deepening reforms, think outside the box and take \r\ninnovative steps for new achievements in promoting all-around \r\nopening-up.

The event took place ahead of the celebration of the centenary of the\r\n founding of the CPC on July 1. More than 740 representatives from 126 \r\npolitical parties and organizations in nearly 100 countries participated\r\n in the event online, and ambassadors of more than 40 countries to China\r\n also took part in the meeting in Shanghai.

Song Tao, director of the International Department of the CPC Central\r\n Committee, said at the meeting that it has been the CPC's strategic \r\nchoice to stick to opening-up, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation in\r\n order to promote common development between China and the rest of the \r\nworld.

The country, led by the CPC, will embrace the world with increasing \r\nopenness in order to have better interactions with the world and \r\ncontribute more to the building of an open world economy, Song said.

Foreign participants at the meeting also commended the CPC's open and\r\n inclusive nature. Ndong Ella Baudelaire, Gabonese ambassador to China, \r\nsaid that, led by the CPC, China has made huge achievements through \r\nreform and opening-up and also contributes to world peace, development \r\nand progress.

"I think it is an inspiration for countries like us," the ambassador said.