The Lin-gang Special Area – located in East China's Shanghai city – is moving in the new year to increase its cross-border trade.

Detailed implementation rules regarding a pilot reform for Lin-gang to conduct a high-level expansion of its cross-border trade and investment were released by the Shanghai Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange on Jan 28.

The rules include nine capital account reform measures and four current account facilitation measures.

In order to promote reform and innovation of the cross-border investment system, measures which broaden the channels for cross-border investment and financing for businesses were put together.

In one of them, Lin-gang will carry out trials to help non-financial enterprises tap into overseas credit lines – enabling local small, medium and micro high-tech enterprises to borrow foreign debt independently, within a certain amount.

In addition, six of the rules are about promoting trade investment and financing. Pilot banks will provide optimized new types of international trade settlements and other convenient services, while domestic reinvestment by foreign-invested enterprises will be exempt from registration.

Meanwhile, three measures were issued to help enterprises to operate independently and flexibly.

Lin-gang will expand the use of revenue from capital accounts, moderately relax the requirements for matching currencies used in cross-border investment and financing and raise the ceiling on overseas lending by non-financial enterprises.