The eighth China Competition Policy Forum opened in Haikou, capital of Hainan province, on Tuesday, gathering from around the world a total of 280 senior officials, enforcers, practitioners, company executives and antitrust academics to discuss the role of competition policies in free trade zone development.

Organized by the State Administration for Market Regulation and the People’s Government of Hainan Province, the two-day annual event focused on the theme, “A Higher-level of Opening-up and Competition Policy — From the perspective of the Free Trade Zone and Free Trade Port in China”.

China established its first pilot free trade zone in Shanghai in 2013. In April of last year, the central government announced plans to transform the entire Hainan Island into the country’s 12th FTZ, covering 35,400 square kilometers, an area 32 times the size of Hong Kong.

“In-depth implementation of competition policy in free trade zones will promote institutional innovation, enhance FTZ development and explore effective ways to strengthen its fundamental position,” said Gan Lin, vice-minister of the State Administration for Market Regulation and commissioner and secretary general of Anti-Monopoly Commission of the State Council, China’s cabinet, at the opening ceremony.

She proposed that China’s FTZs should explore a system to evaluate market competition environment, fully implementing the reviewing system of fair competition, preventing and suppressing monopoly, and developing innovative institutional measures for implementing competition policies.

Government officials and experts from the United States, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Singapore shared their experience on competition policy enforcement in their own countries and on cooperation with China.

They also participated in a parallel discussion that focused on competition policy and high-quality development of economy, strengthening the fundamental position of competition policy and free trade zone construction, the route of choice of Hainan province to strengthen competition policy enforcement, international cooperation and procedural safeguards of competition enforcement.

The China Competition Policy Forum has become an important annual event on the international antitrust calendar since 2012. The platform has played a positive role in facilitating international exchanges and cooperation in the field of anti-monopoly and promoting effective enforcement of the Anti-monopoly Law in China.