Hainan's Emerging Role as a Strategic Headquarters Platform in the RCEP Era
At the Sanya Finance International Forum held on December 27, Zhang Jianping, Vice Chair of the Academic Committee at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, outlined how Hainan is being positioned within China's broader trade and investment strategy.
Zhang argued that Hainan has moved beyond a conventional pilot role and is increasingly functioning as an institutional testing ground for high-standard openness. The introduction of China's first negative list for cross-border trade in services in Hainan, he noted, signals a broader shift in regulatory philosophy. Within the framework of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), China is expected to transition its services trade regime from a positive list to a negative list approach after six years of membership, further aligning with international practices.
Hainan's location within the RCEP region provides structural advantages. Zhang highlighted that products processed in Hainan may enter the Chinese mainland tariff-free once local value-added reaches 30%, while goods meeting a 40% cumulative value-added threshold can circulate across the entire RCEP market at zero tariff. This combination of rules-of-origin flexibility and policy incentives, he said, gives Hainan a unique function in regional supply chains.
He further noted that Hainan'sss industrial priorities are increasingly focused on advanced manufacturing—particularly technology-intensive sectors—alongside modern services, tourism, and tropical high-efficiency agriculture. As these sectors develop, Hainan is likely to attract greater concentrations of both domestic and foreign enterprises seeking long-term growth opportunities, with recent multinational investments illustrating this trend.
Looking ahead, Zhang suggested that Hainan could evolve into a dual headquarters platform: serving as an outbound base for Chinese companies expanding internationally, while also functioning as a regional or global coordination hub for foreign firms entering China and the wider Asia-Pacific market. Such a configuration, he argued, could underpin Hainan's next phase of high-quality development.
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