The People's Bank of China's Shanghai Head Office and Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce issued on October 19, 2020 the Circular about Launching Free Trade Accounts and Supporting Shanghai to Develop Offshore Trade Business.
The PBOC's Shanghai Head Office will instruct commercial banks in the city to provide international trade settlement, trade financing and other cross-border financial services. If companies are on a list of eligible offshore trade business operators, the upstream and downstream business activities under the same contract should be settled under the same free trade account, and must not be handled between a free trade account and a non-free trade account.