China drew on the established experience of other countries when it began building pilot free trade zones, but it has adopted a diverse approach with distinctly Chinese characteristics. Approved by the State Council, pilot FTZs are designated areas that serve as testing grounds for China's efforts to deepen reform comprehensively and expand opening-up under new circumstances.

Since the launch of the first pilot FTZ in Shanghai in 2013, China has steadily increased both the number and the geographical coverage of such zones. By the end of 2025, 22 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had set up their own pilot FTZs. Through continuous innovation, these zones have evolved into high-level platforms for opening-up. They have helped provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities keep up with high-standard international economic and trade rules, continue the opening-up drive, bolster growth momentum and explore innovative development paths suited to local conditions.

Spread over nearly 1.2 million square kilometers, Inner Mongolia autonomous region is China's third-largest provincial-level administrative region. It boasts a border stretching over 4,200 kilometers and 20 ports, which endow it with advantages in opening-up. But due to the structure of its GDP and other factors, Inner Mongolia has yet to fully convert its enormous land area, rich resources and favorable location into economic growth. It remains a border region with a relatively low level of opening-up.

Border and coastal areas stand at the forefront of China's opening-up drive. Coastal regions in the eastern parts of the country were the first to embark on that journey. Notable progress has been made in opening-up to countries in Central Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, which are China's western and southern neighbors. But the country's northward opening-up needs to pick up pace, and Inner Mongolia can play a big role in advancing this effort.

The China (Inner Mongolia) Pilot Free Trade Zone, officially approved in April, marks a milestone in China's northward opening-up. Pilot FTZs are not designed to rely on exceptionally favorable policies that cannot be applied to other regions. Their purpose is to advance opening-up through institutional refinement and innovation. They are given clear goals and tasked with exploring opening-up models best suited to local conditions.

Openness creates opportunities and optimally allocates various factors and resources. This is clear from the tremendous dividends that China has reaped since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. China's accession led to lower and more stable tariffs, easier cross-border travel of people and goods, as well as closer industry and supply chain coordination. This created opportunities for Chinese enterprises and helped propel China to become the world's second-largest economy.

Inner Mongolia maintains a sound economic growth momentum. In 2025, its per capita GDP reached 112,000 yuan ($16,400), 12.56 percent higher than the national average. Though the autonomous region has been relatively slow in advancing opening-up, in recent years it has begun to speed up efforts to foster new drivers of growth while pursuing high-quality development and high-standard opening-up.

The approval of the pilot FTZ this year creates a valuable opportunity for Inner Mongolia to further unleash its economic potential and explore an opening-up and development path tailored to its own conditions. The zone consists of three sub-zones located in the cities of Hohhot, Manzhouli and Erenhot. While Manzhouli borders Russia, Erenhot borders Mongolia, making the zone a gateway between China, Russia and Mongolia.

China's pilot FTZs do not operate in isolation. As platforms for pioneering reform, they are expected to regularly review their operations and summarize successful practices. These experiences are later introduced in other pilot FTZs and even help refine national policies.

So far, China has promoted as many as 485 innovative policies that were first adopted by its pilot FTZs, including the negative list for foreign investment and the "single window" mechanism to streamline the processing of international trade applications. As a newcomer, Inner Mongolia's pilot FTZ could directly implement these policies, which will allow it to devote more time and effort to pursuing innovation that suits its own characteristics and development needs.

There is also immense potential for Inner Mongolia's pilot FTZ to coordinate with other foreign trade platforms in the autonomous region so that they reinforce each other. Hence, the autonomous region should accelerate the construction of the economic cooperation zone that covers Erenhot and Mongolia's Zamyn-Uud, and promote collaboration between the economic cooperation zone and the comprehensive bonded zones in Manzhouli, Ordos and Hohhot. It should also advance the construction of the China-Russia-Mongolia cooperation pilot zone in Hulunbuir, and start special customs operations at border trade markets at Mandula and Ganqmod ports, among others.

China, Mongolia and Russia have sound cooperation in the fields of minerals and energy. Russia and Mongolia want to convert their mineral resources into economic gains, strengthen alignment with the Chinese market and pursue deeper cooperation with Chinese enterprises. Located next to Russia and Mongolia, the Inner Mongolia pilot FTZ could attract more domestic and foreign companies to engage in energy and mineral cooperation and strengthen supply chains. At the same time, the zone could take advantage of Inner Mongolia's new energy sector and its green and low-carbon transition to accelerate cross-border cooperation in computing infrastructure.

China's experience in other pilot FTZs has shown that these zones can quickly lead to rich and innovative outcomes that facilitate opening-up. These outcomes tend to create favorable conditions for business activities, make local governance more systematic and efficient, and forge a more open economic and social landscape.

Although the Inner Mongolia pilot FTZ covers only a minuscule 0.01 percent of the autonomous region's total area, the zone will likely exert far-reaching influence across the region. The three sub-zones of the pilot FTZ could become key drivers of Inner Mongolia's future growth. The pilot FTZ should begin with institutional innovation so that the autonomous region attracts more capital, talent and data, and turns its rich resources into higher value-added products.

The author is a senior research fellow of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

If you have a specific expertise, or would like to share your thought about our stories, then send us your writings at opinion@chinadaily.com.cn, and comment@chinadaily.com.cn.